


A New Angel, a New Fate

by Marcus_S_Lazarus



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003), Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Canon, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:54:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 63,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23544973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marcus_S_Lazarus/pseuds/Marcus_S_Lazarus
Summary: On the run from his people, the Doctor’s curiosity is aroused when he discovers a fleet of humans in deep space in the distant past.
Relationships: Karl "Helo" Agathon/Sharon "Athena" Agathon, William Adama/Laura Roslin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	1. In the Temple

**Author's Note:**

> For those who've read my 'Doctor at War' series- looking at the War Doctor taking action to alter various events in other major conflicts during the chaos of the Time War- this story is a sequel/prequel to the story 'The Counter-Virus'; 'Counter-Virus' featured the War Doctor acting to disable the majority of the Cylon fleet during the Fall of the Twelve Colonies, but this story will look at the subsequent events in Galactia after the arrival of the Eighth Doctor
> 
> For the Colonials, this starts during the events of 'The Eye of Jupiter', just after the discovery of the Temple of Five. For the Doctor, this is set between the Eighth Doctor novels 'The Space Age' and 'The Banquo Legacy', at a time when the TARDIS had been destroyed and he was travelling in his companion Compassion, who had been unintentionally 'evolved' into a Type-102 TARDIS (To give you a better perspective, the Doctor's ship is just a Type-40); after her 'evolution' Compassion was being sought by the Time Lords to use her as 'breeding stock' for a new generation of TARDISes, the Doctor going on the run as he refused to allow his companion to become a slave. Their other companion at this time is Fitz Kriener, a sixties slacker/amateur singer who joined the Doctor after his mother and everyone else at her nursing home developed psychic powers due to alien interference and had to be killed after they went insane, with Fitz deciding to leave with the Doctor rather than face murder charges

"Another cave?" Fitz asked, looking at the Doctor in surprise as his friend studied the console with a smile. "I thought you said we were travelling at random now?"

"We are," the Doctor smiled, patting the Randomiser with a grin before taking one last glance at the read-outs on the console. "It just seems that we've lucked out with our coordinates so far; the cave on Eskon, the asteroid we were at last time, and now this new cave."

"And it's far more interesting than the last underground location we visited," Compassion's voice interjected, sounding actually intrigued for once. "You should come out and take a look."

"On our way," the Doctor grinned, as Compassion's door appeared in its usual place, leaving him and Fitz to walk out and take in their surroundings.

Even Fitz couldn't fail to be impressed at the scale of what awaited them outside their travelling companion. They were standing in a vast stone chamber with a large central column, extending up to about half the height of the overall room. There were some kind of strange crystals on the top of the column just underneath what looked like a similar set of crystals hanging from the ceiling, along with five smaller pentagonal columns around the central structure. The walls were covered in some kind of hieroglyph that Fitz couldn't even remotely recognise, along with the occasional repeated image of a series of orange, yellow and blue circles inside each other in some sort of pattern.

"Fascinating," the Doctor said, smiling in approval before he turned back to Compassion. "You were right, Compassion; this _is_ interesting."

"Any idea what it's for?" Fitz asked, as he took in the surrounding area once again before asking his next question. "And why's it so light in here?"

"I believe the light's coming from those crystals, actually," the Doctor said, indicating the crystals scattered around the upper level of the temple before he turned to study the walls. "As for your first question, I can't be sure what we're looking at here. Really, it's the writing that's the puzzle; it has some similarities to Ancient Greek, but there's something about it that doesn't quite fit that image…"

"Aside from the fact that we're several centuries in the past even for the Greeks?" Compassion interjected.

"And probably quite a few planets away from there as well?" Fitz asked.

"Yes to both," the Doctor confirmed, his expression curious as he stared at the nearest wall. "Still, where it matters, that's the advantage of this Randomiser compared to the last one; if even I don't recognise the area, nobody will think to look for me here…"

"In what way?" Compassion asked.

"Well," the Doctor explained, turning back to his companions with a smile, "the problem with the Randomiser is that it's not _completely_ random. I mean, _where_ we go is out of our hands, but since any TARDIS with one installed is still bound by the automatic safety protocols not to materialise in a potentially hostile environment, there are still a certain number of likely options that the Time Lords could consider looking for us on. On some level, Compassion has a degree of access to my old ship's flight records to help her automatically calculate a course, but our main advantage is… well, to put it in terms you can understand, she hadn't developed a 'Favourites' list before I installed it."

"Pardon?" Fitz asked.

"When I installed a Randomiser in my old ship, my first couple of trips with it took me back to planets I'd visited before, and after that I spent some time having to override it to respond to distress signals or track down missing friends," the Doctor explained, briefly wistful at the memory of that particular time of his life before he focused back on the present. "Anyway, since Compassion's starting fairly fresh, our journeys are fundamentally more random because she doesn't have any past 'preferences' to influence the Randomiser's destination."

"In other words, since I haven't really gone anywhere as myself, the Randomiser isn't just falling back into old habits?" Compassion asked, curious despite her usual indifference.

"Precisely," the Doctor smiled. "I mean, you may have some degree of access to my past journeys, but that's a minor detail in the grand scheme of things…"

The sound of footsteps suddenly reached the three, prompting them to turn around towards a small door in one part of the room.

"Ah, good; company," the Doctor smiled, turning to look at the door. "Maybe we'll find out where this is."

No sooner had the Doctor spoken than a small group of men walked in, wearing dark trousers and tight grey shirts under what Fitz could only think of as black vests, many of them looking dirty and sweaty and some of them carrying guns.

"Hello," the Doctor said, walking up to the new arrivals with a broad smile and an outstretched hand. "I'm the Doctor, and-?"

" _On your knees_!" one of the men said, brandishing what looked to Fitz like some kind of Earth gun as some of his colleagues pulled out similar weapons, all aimed at the three travellers in a manner that made it clear everyone present knew how to use them. " _NOW_!"

"Oh dear," the Doctor said, even as he obeyed the order and quickly got to his knees, a warning glance back at Fitz and Compassion all they needed to follow their friend's example. "It's going to be one of _those_ first contacts…"

"Shut up!" another man said, as the three travellers found themselves surrounded, two men aiming guns at their heads as a third forced them to their feet.

"I don't know _how_ you got here," a third man said, looking at the three with a kind of hostile uncertainty as though he wasn't sure if he should shoot them immediately or not, "but you're _not_ going to share this with the rest of your toaster friends."

"Toasters?" Fitz repeated in confusion. "Why would we want to talk to toasters?"

"What?" the man said, looking at Fitz in confusion before he starting chuckling sarcastically. "Oh, that's rich; you introduce new models for the first time since New Caprica, and you think we'll just be so excited to see new faces that we won't ask any questions? Do you really think we're _that_ stupid?"

"No, we just genuinely don't know what you're talking about," Compassion said, looking bluntly at the man, only to fall silent as the man pointed a gun at her.

"Look," the Doctor said, looking anxiously at the assembled men, "maybe we could talk about this somewhere more comfortable? I don't know where we are, but considering your equipment, I presume you have a ship of some sort somewhere?"

The man stared thoughtfully at the Doctor for a moment, until he nodded and looked at one of the other men.

"Hotdog," he said firmly, "you're due to finish your shift soon; take these three up to _Galactica_ and get Doc Cottle to run a full check-up."

"Sir," the other man said, nodding in confirmation before he turned to indicate a couple of other men. "You're with me; take these three back to the Raptor."

"From which we'll be taken to your main ship?" the Doctor asked, smiling as he got back to his feet. "Excellent; always good to meet people in authority."

Fitz could never be sure how the Doctor managed to be so casual whenever they were arrested; did his friend ever get worried about anything?


	2. Colonial First Contact

This whole situation might be completely outside his experience, but the Doctor had to admit that he was rather enthusiastic about that; after so long worrying about keeping Compassion safe and dealing with immediate threats that he had to sort on short notice before anyone else took action, it was refreshing to be faced with a few intriguing questions that wouldn't mean life or death if he didn't answer them immediately.

While he had no real idea what humans were doing this far out in space this far back in the past, he had to admit that the whole situation was rather intriguing. From what he'd seen of their 'Battlestar' as he and his companions were taken up from the planet, their ship was fairly basic compared to some of the technology he had encountered in his past lives, but the sheer scale of it was still impressive despite its battered physical condition. The assembled ships around the Battlestar raised some interesting questions about what was going on here- none of this group struck him as a 'qualified' exploration fleet by any definition- but he had to focus on the main issue right now, which lay in working out where they were and what he could do to keep Fitz safe (Compassion's safety went without saying).

As the small ship they were travelling in landed in one of the 'docking bays' protruding from the side of the main ship, it was lowered into another part of the ship, the three marines waiting for a moment until something beeped and the ship's doors opened. The Doctor only had a moment to speculate that this ship didn't have forcefield technology and must rely on simple hatches to keep pressure contained before he and his companions were forced out of the ship and led towards the medical bay. Fitz looked anxiously around himself as they walked through the ship, but Compassion continued to look around with her usual nonchalance as the Doctor simply kept silent track of the route they were following into the ship. He might only need to enter Compassion to retreat, but old habits died hard, and he'd prefer not to simply dematerialise and run off until he was more aware of the situation and if there was anything he could do to help.

Once he reached the medical bay, he was pleased to find three people waiting for him with a manner that suggested some degree of authority. The old man with white hair in a white coat was probably the local doctor, but the one-eyed bald man had a definite commanding presence, and something about the other man with thick greying hair and a weathered face reminded him of Alistair before he was rejuvenated at Cheldon Bonniface.

"Ah, hello," he said, smiling politely at the three men as Compassion and Fitz were marched in to stand alongside him. "I'm the Doctor, and these are Fitz and Compassion; who are you?"

"'Who are you'?" the one-eyed man said, looking at the Doctor incredulously. "You actually think we'd buy that?"

"Buy what?" Fitz asked, looking at the speaker in confusion. "Who do you think we-?"

"Cut the ignorant act, you fracking toaster!" the man said, walking towards Fitz with a firm glare before the other man in blue placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Colonel," the other man said, his tone firm as he looked at his colleague. "I appreciate your concern, but I think if this was a bluff, the Cylons would try something less obvious if they wanted to trick us?"

After a moment's silence, the one-eyed man sighed grimly as he stepped back.

"Good point…" he said, his tone exasperated as he looked at the three travellers. "Still doesn't explain _what_ they're doing here, though…"

"Oh, we're just travellers passing through," the Doctor explained, smiling politely at the three men. "As I said, I'm the Doctor, and these are my friends, Fitz and Compassion."

"Travellers," the man said (Based on his solemn manner, the Doctor had tentatively identified him as the leader among these three). "From where?"

"Well…" the Doctor said, looking uncertainly between his friends and the three men before he came to a decision. "That's… actually a fairly long story; it might be more appropriate if you… ran a couple of checks to support what I'm going to tell you?"

"A couple of checks?" the old doctor repeated.

"I assume that you have some kind of medical scanner or something that can give you some idea of our internal anatomy?" the Doctor explained, shrugging casually as he turned to look at the doctor. "Please, feel free to run whatever tests you like- beyond cutting us open, obviously- and then I will be happy to answer any questions you have."

It was a risky offer to make, but right now, when he didn't know what he and his companions were being accused of and what kind of situation they'd dropped into, he felt that it was the best way to make his point right now.

* * *

Sitting in the main waiting area of the infirmary, Admiral William Adama wondered what it said about him if he was actually considering the idea in his mind.  
  
He had no idea who this 'Doctor' or the other two people with him were or where they had come from, but something about him just…  
  
Despite the questions raised by his presence, something about the Doctor made Adama _want_ to trust him.  
  
It was a strange thing to think, but he just couldn't see the Doctor as some kind of Cylon plant. Lieutenant Agathon might have confirmed that there were still five Cylon models even the seven known models didn't know about for some reason, but as he'd already noted, the Cylons weren't stupid enough to try and plant three new models in the fleet in such an obvious manner. They'd only just discovered the Temple of Five, there was nothing to suggest that the Cylons were here already, and the admiral personally wasn't even sure that the Temple would be that useful to them to begin with; why would the Cylons do something this stupid to try and 'distract' them from analysing it?  
  
"What are you thinking?"  
  
Looking up, Adama smiled slightly as he saw Tigh staring at him, his old friend's expression as intense as ever despite his missing eye.  
  
"How little sense this all makes," Adama answered, his tone solemn as he stood up. "We find the Temple of Five, and then we find three strangers this far from the Colonies after this long? Even if some other ship from home managed to find this planet by chance, there's no frakking way a three-man crew could have made it this far…"  
  
"Don't know about how they got here, but I can answer one thing right now," Cottle said, walking into the waiting room with an expression on his face that actually seemed to be the closest thing Adama had ever seen to shock on his doctor's face. "They're not human."  
  
"So they _are_ Cylon?" Tigh asked.  
  
"Not unless they really screwed up the production line somewhere," Cottle said grimly. "Like that 'Doctor' fellow suggested, I put all three of them through an MRI scan after making sure they didn't have anything in them that might have been 'tripped' by the magnets in the equipment. That Fitz fellow seems straightforward enough, but the scan can't seem to pick up anything about the woman's insides no matter how I configure it, and as for the man…"  
  
Shaking his head, the doctor reached into his coat and pulled out a rolled-up 'print-out' from the machine before handing it over to the admiral. "Well, look at this."  
  
Unrolling the offered image, it didn't take the admiral long to see what had caused the other man's confusion.  
  
" _Two_ hearts?" Tigh said incredulously, studying the image over Adama's shoulder. "This frakker's got _two hearts_?"  
  
"And that's just the most obvious difference," Cottle said. "There's some kind of extra lobe in his brain, an extra couple of ribs in his ribcage, what should be his lungs are just weird when I look at them more closely, there's something off about his nervous system that I just can't explain, and I think there's even an extra liver in there somewhere…"  
  
"So… what is he?" Adama asked, the possibility swimming through his mind even if he didn't want to be the one to say it first.  
  
"Either he's some kind of weird super-Cylon, which I don't buy because there's no obvious sign of what these additions can do and they'd try and introduce something like this more cautiously if it was part of some plan…" Cottle began grimly.  
  
"Or what?" Tigh asked, when Cottle didn't elaborate further on his own. "He's a frakking _alien_?"  
  
The silence from Cottle said it all about his thoughts on that idea.  
  
"You're frakking kidding me," Tigh groaned. "We had to go through the end of the worlds to make first contact with some nut who dresses like he's in some old novel? What kind of alien looks that human, and what's with those other two anyway?"  
  
"That," Adama said as he stood up, "is one of the many things I'm going to ask him."  
  
He didn't know what was going on, but if this man was an… alien… of some sort, he wanted to know what the man was doing in the Temple of Five…


	3. The Time Lord and the Admiral

As he sat in the room that was clearly an interrogation room no matter what they attempted to label it as, the Doctor had to admit that this was actually one of his more comfortable periods of captivity. Once the initial wave of questions and accusations had been dealt with, he and his companions had been treated fairly well apart from being marched fairly promptly through this ship, and the requested scan had been simple enough.

True, he wouldn't have minded being offered something to eat, but he hadn't been kept here long enough for even a human to get particularly hungry, so he wasn't going to complain just yet…

His musings were interrupted when the door opened and the older, dark-haired man he'd met earlier walked in, an expression on his face that put the Doctor in mind of those other cases where he'd turned someone's world on its head.

"Ah, hello," he said, smiling politely at the older man as he sat down opposite him. "Since you're here alone, I take it your doctor told you about the results of those scans I suggested?"

"He did," the other man said, nodding grimy at the Time Lord. "Two hears, two livers, a third lobe to the brain, a nervous system he admits that he can't even begin to understand…"

The physically older man stared silently at the Doctor for a moment before he asked his first real question. "Who are you?"

"Like I told you, I'm the Doctor," the Time Lord smiled politely at the admiral. "I'm a… traveller, of no fixed abode; my companions and I were just… passing by and stopped in to take a look at that fascinating temple before your men arrived and brought us here."

"A traveller," the other man repeated, looking sceptically at the Doctor. "If you aren't… human… why do you look like us?"

"You'd actually be surprised how many species follow a similar evolutionary line," the Doctor smiled politely. "There are many theories about the reasons for that, of course, but this isn't the time or place for that…"

"And… your companions?" the old man asked. "Where did they come from?"

"Well, Compassion came from a distant colony and decided to come with me after she realised that she didn't fit in with her people any more, and I ran into Fitz on Earth-"

" _Earth_?" the older man repeated, suddenly looking at the Doctor with a new intensity behind his gaze. "You've been to _Earth_?"

"Oh yes; it's actually my favourite planet…" the Doctor began, before he registered the full implications of the other man's reaction. "I… take it Earth's important to you?"

"We've… been looking for it for a while," the old man said, still looking intently at the Doctor even as he seemed to regain control of himself. "Can you… take us there? Or at least tell us where it is?"

"Unfortunately, I… can't help you with that," the Doctor said, quickly discarding the possibilities of either lying or giving the man before him the complete truth in favour of a partial truth. "Shortly before I arrived here, my ship's flight records were… well, 'lost' is the best way of putting it; I'm not even sure where I am _now_ , never mind where I am in relation to Earth."

"I… see," the old man said, looking at him for a moment before he spoke again. "And… where is your ship?"

"That's… a very long and complicated story," the Doctor replied, before he looked more curiously at the admiral. "Before I tell you that, maybe you could answer a few of my questions about what this fleet's doing here?"

"What you've seen while coming up to this battlestar are the last survivors of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol," the admiral said grimly.

"The _last_ survivors?" the Doctor repeated incredulously. "This _entire_ fleet represents the survivors of _twelve planets_? What happened?"

"The Cylons," the old man continued.

"The Cylons?" the Doctor repeated curiously. "What are they?"

"Originally, they were just machines we created to serve as a work force," the other man explained, leaning forward to address the Time Lord. "We kept using them even after we observed evidence that they were becoming sentient… but eventually, they revolted against us about fifty years ago."

"And they won?"

"Actually, that conflict ended in an armistice about forty years ago," the man continued, shaking his head in grim confusion at that memory before he continued. "We never worked out why they backed off like that, but we accepted the deal anyway. Once we'd rebuilt most of the essentials on the colonies, we established a space station on the armistice line to maintain talks with the Cylons, but no word was ever heard from them for the next four decades… until they returned and nuked all twelve of our worlds and unleashed a computer virus that disabled virtually every active Battlestar before they could fight back."

"You… have my sympathies," the Doctor said, bowing his head in brief acknowledgement of the scale of the loss these people must have suffered, before he looked curiously at his new acquaintance. "How did they do that?"

"As it turned out," the old man explained, "while they'd been in isolation, the Cylons had advanced far further than we'd expected. We don't know how, but during those forty years, they'd advanced to the point where they could… essentially, they had developed their technology to the point where they could replicate human form."

"Replicate?" the Doctor repeated. "You mean… they look human?"

"Not just look human," the man said firmly. "According to every test we ran on some of the human Cylons after we killed them, there's no obvious difference between these skinjobs and real humans, apart from them being a bit stronger and being able to resurrect."

"Resurrect?" the Doctor repeated once again, curious at this news.

"Every time we kill a Cylon, its mind downloads into a copy of its body that they keep somewhere else, mostly on these 'Resurrection Ships' specifically created for that purpose," the old man explained. "There's apparently a limit to how far they can be from a ship before they can't be 'uploaded' or whatever the term is, but it's still pretty significant; a Cylon agent on this ship was shot over a year ago, when we'd had no direct contact with Cylons for a couple of weeks, and she was confirmed to have resurrected a few months later."

"Mmm," the Doctor mused, nodding in acknowledgement of this new information. "And this 'resurrection' is a complete memory download?"

"As far as we know," the old man said grimly. "They even gave their fighters the ability; makes it harder for our pilots to fight the things if they keep coming back knowing what tricks they'll be up against."

"Quite…" the Doctor said, nodding in grim understanding. "Twelve worlds nuked and very little in the way of viable alternatives… I see your problem."

"We tried settling on a planet we found in a nebula a year ago, but only about twenty percent of its surface was habitable and even that part wasn't very good at helping us set up any kind of crop," the old man continued. "The world we're orbiting might be more comfortable, but there's not much in the way of food and that star's fairly unstable; we only came here because our food supplies were contaminated a few weeks ago and some of our scientists had the idea that we could recycle the algae here as an alternative source of protein."

"But you must have a plan of some sort…" the Doctor began, before his eyes widened in understanding. "Earth?"

"Earth," the old man confirmed with the warmest smile the Doctor had seen yet. "The world that was said to have been settled by the Thirteenth Tribe when they left the other twelve centuries ago. We've found a few clues and markers to its location in some of the old texts, but we're mostly taking guesses and hoping we're going the right way; it's why I hoped that you might be able to give us… something more."

"I see," the Doctor said, trying not to show just how apprehensive he was at that idea.

He knew from his brief glance at Compassion's console before he left her that he was fairly far in the past at this point, and he'd witnessed alien interference in Earth's history often enough to know that humanity could ignore anything if they couldn't explain it… but how could the human race forget about a mass exodus across the stars to escape an army of killer robots?

Still, whatever was going on here, there were still some interesting questions that needed to be answered… and since the Time Lords could only track materialisation based on Compassion arriving on a planet's _surface_ …

"Well…" he began, smiling slightly at the other man before his grin faltered. "I'm so sorry, I can't believe I didn't ask this earlier; what's your name?"

"Admiral William Adama," the old man said, shaking the Doctor's offered hand.

"A pleasure to meet you, Admiral Adama," the Doctor smiled back at him. "I am the Doctor, and you may consider me at your service until your Cylon troubles are over."

"At my service?" Adama repeated curiously.

"I may not be sure where Earth _is_ in relation to us, but I do have a few ideas about dealing with unconventional and dangerous situations," the Doctor explained, trying to look reassuringly at the other man. "Let me see what you have for Earth so far, and I'll see what I can do."

"Why would you do that?" Adama asked, looking critically at the Doctor.

"Because," the Doctor said, ignoring his usual humour in favour of a solemn response, "whatever the Cylons may use to justify their attacks on you, humans are very much my favourite species, and I have no interest in seeing you all get wiped out because a few advanced machines can't accept that you don't deserve to be blamed for the actions of a few."

He'd appreciate a chance to talk to a few of the Cylons when he had the time, but in his book, if one side was willing to nuke twelve planets without any reference to a formal declaration of war, at the very least _some_ of them must have wanted their 'enemies' dead very badly, and that kind of desire wasn't something even he could take them out of…


	4. Staying Put

"An alien," President Laura Roslin said, staring incredulously as their strange new guests as she sat opposite him in _Galactica_ 's conference room, Admiral Adama and Colonel Tigh on either side of her. "You're… an alien?"

"Yes," the man replied with a warm smile.

"And you call yourself… 'the Doctor'?"

"Everyone does," the Doctor said with a shrug. "It's just easier that way; it's actually been so long since I even used my original name that I'm not even sure I can remember it."

"You forgot your own frakking _name_?" Tigh asked incredulously.

"I'm a lot older than I look, Colonel," the Doctor replied with a shrug. "Believe me, it's been a _very_ long time since I've gone by my name…"

"If it helps, I'm pretty much the age I look," the other man said from his position to the Doctor's right, shrugging awkwardly as their female companion simply sat silently and stared around the room. "And Compassion is… well, that's a bit more complicated."

"You don't want to know why," the woman in question said, looking at the three Colonial leaders with a pointed stare that somehow made it clear that her name was meant to be ironic.

"And…" Roslin said, looking at the other man in awkward apprehension, as though she still couldn't believe what she'd heard, "you're… from Earth?"

"Born and raised," the man smiled at her. "Fitz Kreiner; good to meet you all."

Laura Roslin had spent the better part of the last three years wondering what she would do if she ever met anyone from Earth- even when she'd officially lost the presidential election, she'd still harboured the thought that she'd be involved in the final negotiations after everything she'd done for the first few months of the journey- but she'd never expected that her first contact with Earth would be with someone so…

She wasn't sure what the right term was here; 'normal' or 'casual' didn't quite cover it, but his manner was still far from what she'd been expecting.

"Yeah, yeah, great to meet you too," Colonel Tigh nodded briefly before he turned to glare at the Doctor. "And you say you can't just _take_ us to Earth despite having been there before because…?"

"As I already explained to the admiral here, I don't have any precise astronavigation charts that would help me work out where Earth is in relation to our current position, and my ship… well, it's been through a lot lately; it couldn't get us there no matter how much I wanted to go," the Doctor explained, shrugging awkwardly before he looked directly at Roslin. "Believe me, Madame President, if I could take or direct you to Earth, I would, but it's just not possible with what I have on hand."

"I… understand," Roslin said, surprised at her easy acceptance of the other man's story.

He might not be human, but there was something in the Doctor's manner that made him more human than most of the Cylons she'd witnessed on New Caprica, no matter how hard they might have tried to act human. No matter the mystery of his origins or his reasons for being here, somehow, Roslin _knew_ that he would help them if he could…

"Uh… Madam President?" a voice said from the door, the six residents of the room looking around to see Lieutenant Gaeta standing uncertainly at the door; everyone on _Galactica_ knew about the three new arrivals, but so far information about their identities was being kept fairly contained. "We're getting a message up from the planet about the temple; the chief's pretty sure it's… what you thought it was."

"I see," Laura said, nodding in understanding before she stood up, looking at the Doctor for a moment before she spoke again. "I don't suppose you know anything about the Temple we found you in that you'd care to share with us?"

"We literally arrived there a few moments before your men marched us up here at gunpoint; how are we meant to know a _thing_ about it?" Compassion asked.

"I saw no harm in making sure," Roslin said grimly before she sighed and fixed her gaze on the Doctor. "In any case, I need to see what can be done in that area, so for the moment, I have a simple question for you; do you now or have any intention of ever working with the Cylons?"

"After everything I've heard about them, no," the Doctor replied, his expression shifting to grim as he looked at Roslin. "I appreciate that you have no reason to believe this, Madame President, but be assured of this; when a civilisation decides to nuke twelve planets and billions of people without even a formal declaration of war, I am not inclined to _help_ them do anything."

As she looked at the strange man with two hearts, Roslin was suddenly struck by a feeling that, if this man had felt differently, he might just be a greater danger to the Fleet than the Cylons were.

"Thank you," she said, nodding politely at the Doctor as she stood up. "I have business to attend to at the moment, but once we've completed our survey of the planet, I would be… grateful to talk to you again."

"And I'd be happy to offer what I can," the Doctor replied with a casual smile.

As Roslin walked out of the conference room, Adama looked at the three strange guests for a moment before he came to a decision.

"I'll leave a guard outside the door if you want to wait in here or go anywhere else," the admiral said as he looked between the three new arrivals. "As President Roslin said, we don't have the time to discuss your situation in depth at the moment, but for the moment… you'll have limited access to the more secure areas, of course-"

"I understand completely, Admiral Adama," the Doctor smiled warmly at the older man. "I appreciate your show of faith, and assure you that my companions and I will do nothing to break it."

"You'd better not," Colonel Tigh said, his eye narrowing as he looked at the mysterious man before he sighed and stood up. "Well, better be getting back to business…"

* * *

As soon as the three Colonials had left the room, Fitz and Compassion turned to look at the Doctor.  
  
"So… what now?" Fitz asked. "Get in and leave?"  
  
"No," the Doctor said firmly.  
  
"Excuse me?" Compassion said, looking suspiciously at the Time Lord. "In case you haven't noticed, this isn't the kind of situation where you can just show up and change things; these people are the last survivals of a major war-"  
  
"And they're now on the run from their enemies while remaining in _space_ ," the Doctor finished, smiling at his companions. "Don't you remember what I told you about _how_ the Time Lords track us?"  
  
"By randomly scanning the surface of a planet for when we materialise- _oh_ ," Fitz said, eyes widening in understanding as he took in their surroundings. "But we're not _on_ a planet right now…"  
  
" _Exactly_ ," the Doctor smiled. "If these ships have managed to leave their home systems and reach at least this world since their destruction, they have to have some form of faster-than-light travel, and _that_ means that once they're ready to move on, we can accompany them into deep space."  
  
"And… the Time Lords won't find us there?" Fitz asked.  
  
"Not for a while, anyway," the Doctor smiled. "After all, we'd be in deep space, in the distant past, at a point in history that relatively little is known about because so few species were active at this time; after all, you've never _known_ about the Venusians, have you?"  
  
"Venusians- Venus was _inhabited_?" Fitz said incredulously.  
  
"Around three million years before your time, but yes it was," the Doctor smiled at Fitz before he looked back at Compassion. "The point is that, if we go with these people, you won't be accumulating artron energy with each dematerialisation, _and_ we'll be moving a significant distance from our original starting-point."  
  
He smiled between the other two for a moment before his gaze focused on Fitz. "That said, if these people want to go to Earth, you should probably avoid sharing too much about the planet at the moment; I get the impression that they have a lot to deal with as it is without us adding the complication of time travel to their world-view."  
  
"Ah," Fitz said, nodding in awkward understanding. "We're… fairly far back, then?"  
  
"So far back nobody I know knew about these people," the Doctor said firmly, staring solemnly around the room. "Which raises a few questions about what will happen to them…"  
  
Fitz briefly thought about asking what the Doctor meant by that, but he soon decided that he didn't want to know the answer.  
  
He knew that the Doctor's priority would always be to protect innocent people, but he also knew that his friend placed a great importance on protecting the course of history, particularly with the Faction such a major threat.  
  
If it came to a situation where he _knew_ that these people had to die or their survival would change history…  
  
What would the Doctor do?


	5. First Sighting

"Have you managed to take any surveys of the location so far?" Roslin asked as she sat at _Galactica_ 's radio talking with Chief Tyrol; this discovery might be almost as significant as the revelation that they'd made contact with alien life, but after her earlier visions, it was at least something she could almost expect.

She was already debating how much of recent events she should share with the rest of the Fleet. While confirmation that Earth existed was good, considering that Mr Kreiner was far from any kind of diplomat and his alien pilot couldn't give them a precise direction, it didn't seem like giving that knowledge away to the rest of the fleet would accomplish anything more than make the Doctor and his friends the focus of too much public scrutiny…

"… _temple's at least four thousand years old_ ," Chief Tyrol's voice said over the radio, his words drawing Roslin back to the matter she had to deal with right now, " _which_ _lines up with the exodus of the Thirteenth Tribe_."

"Do you really think you've found the Temple of Five?" Roslin asked

" _Yeah_ ," Tyrol replied. " _I recognize it from the books in my father's study, Madame President. He was a priest, and the Temple of Five was an important part of our faith- well, his faith anyways_."

"Could this place be related to the Eye of Jupiter, chief?" Roslin asked, after exchanging brief glances with Adama.

" _You got me, Madame President_ ," the chief replied. " _All I know is the stuff I kinda remember from sneaking into my dad's study when he wasn't looking_."

"The Eye of Jupiter?" Adama put in from in front of her. "What exactly are we talking about?"

" _According to the Scriptures, it's a marker that was left behind by the Thirteenth Tribe_ ," Roslin explained.

" _It's supposed to point the way to Earth_."

" _Nothing down here that could be it yet_ ," Tyrol said from over the radio. " _Could those other three have taken it_?"

"Unlikely," Roslin said; a radio wasn't the best way to tell Tyrol the full details of their unexpected guests, but she felt like she should give him some kind of information. She was about to say more when she was distracted by a sudden alarm blaring through the ship, prompting the admiral to take the radio back from her.

"Chief, we're on alert," Adama said, switching the radio frequency before Tyrol could reply. "This is Adama."

" _Admiral_ ," a familiar voice said at the other end. " _Lieutenant Gaeta, CIC. We have multiple dradis contacts. Four Cylon baseships just jumped into view_."

"On our way," Adama said, exchanging a grim look with Roslin as the Fleet's two leaders headed for the CiC. For a moment, Roslin wondered if their mysterious guests could have anything to do with this, but immediately dismissed that idea as paranoid; as strange as it seemed, she trusted that the Doctor was genuine when he said that he was on their side.

"Sitrep?" Adama asked as the two of them reached the CiC.

"Four baseships inbound at high speed," Colonel Tigh said grimly.

"Four?" Roslin repeated, killing her initial hope that the first number had been incorrect.

"The bastards practically jumped right on top of us," the colonel said, his one eye narrowing as he looked at Adama. "Think those frackers-?"

"Have been under constant observation since they came here; they wouldn't have had the time to send any kind of message," Adama said firmly, before he looked at where Lieutenant Hoshi was currently manning the navigation station. "Fleet status?"

"Spooling up their FTL drives, sir," the former _Pegasus_ lieutenant replied. "Preparing to jump to emergency stand-by coordinates o n your command."

"Do it," Adama said firmly, the younger man nodding in confirmation as he tapped a few switches on his console. As Roslin looked up at the DRADIS screen, the various civilian ships began to vanish, leaving only _Galactica_ and the newly-arrived Basestars after a few moments.

"We've got to hold this position until everyone's back on board," Adama said.

"How many are down there?" Roslin asked.

"Enough," Adama said firmly, even as the president mused that she shouldn't have asked that question; ever since they'd nearly lost Starbuck during her crash-landing early in this journey, she had come to recognise that Adama would never leave a man behind unless he was certain there was no hope of rescue.

"Admiral," she said, reminded of her earlier conversation with Tyrol, "if the Eye of Jupiter is somewhere in that temple, and it really is a marker o n the way to Earth… We can't let the Cylons get their hands o n it."

"Stand by to launch vipers," Adama said urgently.

"Something's odd here," Colonel Tigh noted. "The Cylons aren't launching Raiders. The baseships are standing off outside of weapons range."

"That is odd," Roslin noted; military tactics might not be her strongest point, but even she could see that the points Tigh had raised didn't make any sense.

"Admiral," Hoshi said, looking up from the communications console. "It's the Cylon baseship, requesting to speak with you."

"Put it through the speaker," Adama said, looking uncertainly at Roslin and Tigh before he turned to the phone. "This is Admiral Adama."

" _Admiral_ ," a familiar voice said over the speaker, Roslin only able to stare at Adama as she registered a voice she'd prayed she'd never have to hear again. " _I can't tell you what a genuine pleasure it is to hear your voice. This is Gaius Baltar_."

_Why is it_ , Roslin wondered as she looked at Adama to note that he at least shared her shock at this revelation, _that the people we_ want _to stay dead never do_?

And she'd been hoping that the revelation that aliens were real would be the most awkward news she'd encounter this week…

* * *

As she waited in _Galactica_ 's conference room, Roslin constantly wondered if she'd made a mistake agreeing to this particular 'conference'. As Adama had noted, the Cylons must want something if they hadn't just started shooting at the battlestar the moment they jumped in, but even if she agreed with the idea of negotiation, she was less assured about the latest addition to their plan.  
  
"Are you certain about this?" she asked, keeping her voice low as the marines gathered to focus their weapons on the main door.  
  
"We discussed-" Adama began.  
  
"Not Baltar," Roslin said, indicating the podium behind them. " _That_. Won't Baltar notice?"  
  
"He didn't spend much time here even when he came here, he's not that observant when he has no reason to pay attention, and we could probably pass that off as repair damage if he wonders about it," Adama said. "It's a risk, but he made a good point; a new observer might see things we'll miss."  
  
The thing that really surprised Roslin was that she and Adama had been so comfortable with this suggestion in the first place. They might have only just met the mysterious Doctor, but even if he couldn't give them any proof of his claims, something about him encouraged confidence…  
  
Her thoughts on her strange decision were cut short as the door opened and Colonel Tigh walked in from the front, followed by Doctor Baltar and the Cylons they'd met under the names of John Cavil and D'Anna Biers; Roslin thought that Sharon Valerii had told them that these were Cylon numbers One and Three, but it wasn't important right now.  
  
"Laura," Baltar said, the man having the nerve to actually cry as he looked between her and Adama, despite the admiral standing in front of him. "Laura… it's so good to see you."  
  
"The weapons are hardly necessary," D'Anna said, as Baltar stepped back into line with the Cylons, evidently recognising that his interest wasn't reciprocated.  
  
"Yes, exactly," Cavil said, his tone teasing as he looked at them. "We come in peace."  
  
"What do you want?" Roslin asked, refusing to rise to the 'old man's' taunt.  
  
"We want the Eye of Jupiter," D'Anna said firmly, her voice low with a hint of hostility. "So let's just skip all the denials and protestations, and go straight to what we know; that you have people o n the ground. And we know that you've found the original settlement of the Thirteenth Tribe."  
  
"It also doesn't take a lot of deduction to conclude that the o nly reason you haven't cut your losses and jumped away by now, is that you probably found the artifact, but you haven't been able to retrieve it yet," Cavil continued, fingers flexed in front of him. "Is that about right, Madame President?"  
  
"We have our people o n the surface, we're not leaving them behind," Roslin said firmly.  
  
"That's a touching, but not very convincing idea," Cavil said dismissively.  
  
"Look the chances that we've all converged o n this small planet at the same time are infinitesimally small, so we all understand it's not chance," Baltar put in. "You want the Eye. The Cylons want the Eye. I would like to discuss the practical issues that come to hand- and there are some- so that we can reach some accommodation."  
  
"The less this man says, the better this will go," Roslin said, resolutely not looking at Baltar; she might dislike the Cylons, but at least shed always known what to expect from them.  
  
"Wait a minute," Baltar said. "If it wasn't for me, the Cylons would have blown you out of the sky two seconds after we'd arrived."  
  
"I think you can handle this alone… if you can stomach it," Roslin said, turning towards the door of the room.  
  
"So I've saved your life, again," Baltar said as she walked towards the door. "How many times is that now? Because I'm beginning to lose count. If it wasn't for me, you'd all be dead!"  
  
Roslin might have to concede that point, but she couldn't think of a single circumstance where Baltar had saved anyone's life when their survival wouldn't have benefitted him; as far as she was concerned, even if he had genuinely talked the Cylons out of firing on _Galactica_ , he probably just did it because he felt pathetically alone among a group of machines.  
  
Still, even if she didn't like him, these negotiations were their best chance to get their people off the planet before the Cylons lashed out, which meant that she should get out before she jeopardised them completely.  
  
She'd wait outside to make sure things didn't escalate, but she wasn't willing to keep talking to that man longer than she had to…

* * *

"What's your offer?" Adama said, taking up the conversation now that the president had left; he might dislike Baltar just as much as she did, but someone had to be reasonably diplomatic during this conversation, and he couldn't trust Tigh to remain objective.  
  
"You give us the Eye of Jupiter, we let you go," D'Anna said.  
  
"And we'll throw in Baltar," Cavil smirked.  
  
"What are you taking about now?" Baltar asked, looking at the older Cylon in shock. "What's he saying-?"  
  
"I'm improvising," Cavil clarified, even if Adama doubted that the elder Cylon was being honest. "Throw in something, sweeten the pot. In fact I'm suspecting that the admiral and Madame President would enjoy some nice, quiet, private time with their former leader. Am I right?"  
  
"Worth thinking about," Tigh said solemnly.  
  
"Definitely worth thinking about," Adama agreed, glancing at Baltar before focusing on the two Cylons. "But we're not giving you the key to finding Earth."  
  
"You try bringing it up from that planet and see what happens," D'Anna said. "We outnumber you four to o ne."  
  
"I'm setting the terms now," Adama countered, walking up to firmly address the former reporter (This might not be the same D'Anna who'd posed as a journalist, but it was easier to assume she had at least similar memories). "Make any attempt to attack this ship or the people o n the planet's surface, I'll launch every nuke I've got. Lay waste to the entire continent."  
  
"You're bluffing," D'Anna countered. "You want to find Earth as much as we do."  
  
"Guards," Adama said, refusing to respond to that comment. "Escort them back to their ship."  
  
Baltar actually looked like he was about to cry as he was led away by the Cylons, but the admiral refused to feel sympathy for him after everything he'd done; the former president might be starting to realise that he wasn't as valuable to the Cylons as he'd probably convinced himself he was, but that didn't change what he'd done in the past.  
  
The fact that the Cavil model winked at him was something that he wasn't going to analyse any further than he had to; he hated the idea that this… _thing_ … might approve of anything he was doing.  
  
As soon as the Cylons were out of the room, followed by the marine guards, Laura Roslin walked back into the conference room from the side entrance- Adama assumed she had wanted to listen in even if she didn't want to confront him directly- while the Doctor stepped out from behind the blue curtains at the back of the podium, looking sympathetically at the three Colonial leaders.  
  
"So," the alien said casually, "those were Cylons?"  
  
"The old man and the woman, anyway," Roslin clarified grimly. "The other man was Doctor Gaius Baltar."  
  
"Ah," the Doctor said, before looking curiously between the other three. "And Doctor Gaius Baltar is?"  
  
"A frakking self-centred asshole with an ego the size of this ship who's also smart enough to justify that attitude," Tigh said grimly.  
  
"He was our greatest surviving scientist after the fall of the Colonies, and I appointed him my vice-president after we re-established the Quorum of Twelve because he seemed the best alternative at the time," Roslin explained. "I began to have some doubts about his abilities as a leader as time went on, but even after he decided to run against me in our last election, I… didn't expect him to automatically surrender and collaborate with the Cylons when we tried to make a life on New Caprica."  
  
"You found an inhabitable planet out here?" the Doctor asked.  
  
"Barely," Adama said grimly. "Most of the surface wasn't really suitable for growing anything, and the bit that was didn't offer much opportunities for planting crops of any sort; the main reason we stayed there was that it was in a nebula that we thought might stop the Cylons finding us."  
  
"And that didn't work?"  
  
"It might have done, up until someone blew up one of our ships and the Cylons tracked it back to source when they were in the right place a year later," Adama explained. "I always thought that it was set off by a nuclear warhead Baltar requested for one of his earlier experiments, but he stonewalled my investigation and I didn't have enough evidence to try and go behind his back."  
  
"Ah, politics; always a headache when the wrong person's in power," the Doctor smiled sympathetically at the admiral before he looked over at Roslin. "Anyway, what is this 'Eye of Jupiter' you were all talking about?"  
  
"Supposedly, it's one of the signs that will point the way to Earth," Roslin said, looking at the Doctor with a sudden sense of uncertainty. "If you've been to Earth…?"  
  
"Unfortunately, I know even less about this Eye than you do," the Doctor said apologetically. "Most likely whoever left your people this route didn't feel the need to keep the instructions themselves; after all, it's not like anything suggests they were planning to come back after leaving you all, does it?"  
  
"Good… point," Roslin said, trying not to show how concerned she was at the sudden thought of whether the Thirteenth Tribe might even _want_ the other colonies finding them…  
  
"That said," the Doctor continued with a contemplative expression, "I can see what you mean about the Cylons being ruthless; they're certainly some of the more diverse individualised androids I've encountered, but that Cavil fellow didn't strike me as someone who talks much…"  
  
"Excuse me?" Roslin asked. "Diverse individualised androids?"  
  
"Oh, I just meant that, from what you've told me, the Cylons were all created as themselves rather than to specifically replace someone?" the Doctor explained. "In my experience, mass-produced androids tend to follow only a very limited pattern, but from what I saw, these Cylons actually seem to be a bit more than just different models of the same person."  
  
"We've picked up enough from our encounters with them to see that each model actually has its own 'speciality'," Adama put in. "Based on the numbers we've learned, as an example, the Twos are particularly religiously inclined while the Fours tend to act as the Cylon doctors; each model has its own specific area of expertise."  
  
"Ah," the Doctor said, his expression faltering before he reassumed his curious smile. "But that's just the core template; do they develop as individuals once they're activated?"  
  
"Well… I saw enough of them on New Caprica to see that there are some differences even among the individual models…" Roslin noted, thinking back on that time as a Cylon 'prisoner'; even if she'd tried to avoid them as much as possible, she couldn't help but notice how even some of the same model of Cylons had used different methods to try and 'connect' with the humans, no matter how flawed those efforts might have been.  
  
"Still similar enough to be frakking pains in the neck," Tigh said grimly.  
  
"Nobody's disputing that, Colonel; I just think it's interesting…" the Doctor said, before looking at Adama. "How different are they from humans?"  
  
"Our autopsies noted a few anomalies around the spinal column and some slight additions to the brain, but nothing that we could pick up on a more casual analysis," Adama replied. "We know that they're vulnerable to certain diseases and types of radiation that humans are immune to, but we haven't found any way to definitively state that someone is human or Cylon, and there are still five models unaccounted for."  
  
"Just five?" the Doctor asked. "Out of how many?"  
  
"Twelve," Roslin added. "We witnessed the other seven during our time on New Caprica, but a Cylon defector has confirmed that the remaining five are for some reason unknown to the rest of the Cylons; they don't even know _why_ this knowledge is hidden, just that it is."  
  
"I see…" the Doctor said, nodding thoughtfully before he clapped his hands together and smiled broadly at the three leaders. "Anyway, getting back to the immediate matter, we need to work out what we're actually looking for down there; do you have anything on the Eye that I could read right now?"


	6. Pondering the Anomalies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point, I feel I should mention that all scenes set on the planet and/or the Baseship will be the same as they were in canon, as only those who've been directly introduced to the Doctor so far actually know anything about him so his presence hasn't impacted the ground forces beyond some of them briefly wondering who he is. Changes will occur once everyone's back on board _Galactica_ , but right now they have more immediate priorities taking up their attention than wondering about three strangers who didn't have time to do anything before being taken into custody.

"So… these robot guys have seven models in action, but they have a Number _Eight_?" Fitz asked, looking sceptically at the Doctor as the three time-travellers sat in _Galactica_ 's conference room; with nothing they could contribute to the crisis on the algae planet, the Doctor had asked for some time to go over what the Colonials knew about the Cylons so far and discuss the situation with his friends, with Adama assuring them that he'd let them know if the situation changed in any way. "If they're robots, shouldn't they do it in order?"

"A good question, to which I only wish I had as good an answer," the Doctor noted, nodding in acknowledgement of his companion's point. "We can assume that someone did _something_ to the Number Seven model at some point that meant it never got past the production line, but that doesn't help us explain why they did that or even who was responsible."

"Typical," Compassion mused, actually smiling as she looked up at the Doctor. "These people create an entire race of machines, and eventually even the machines start acting up."

"I've encountered a lot of machines that became more irrational than their creators, actually; the problem always seems to lie in letting them advance to a point where what they want to be is beyond what their creators can do for them…" the Doctor mused, before he sighed and shrugged. "Anyway, as fascinating as that is, right now our priority is getting these people off the planet safely and helping them work out how to get to Earth, which means understanding what we're up against."

"No way we can trace Earth by the stars or something?" Fitz asked hopefully.

"At this distance from Earth's solar system and this far in the past, I don't have anything I can really work with to identify our respective positions," the Doctor shook his head apologetically. "In the end, we're just too far out of range, particularly with Compassion's coordinates thrown off by the Randomiser, so we just have to hope that they can find whatever clue is represented by this 'Eye of Jupiter' they were talking about by themselves."

"Are you sure that we can't do anything?" Compassion asked. "I did some research on the technology these people have; their 'jump drives'-"

"Create a displacement in the air when they're used due to the sudden creation of a vacuum that could cause structural damage to the ship," the Doctor interjected. "They might be able to launch without actually leaving the battlestar, but I'm fairly sure that these people don't want us to damage their ship after everything else it's been through."

"Ah," Fitz said, looking uncertainly at the Doctor for a moment as he thought about what he'd just heard before deciding to ask another question. "Are you… OK about this? Being stuck up here while everything's going wrong down there?"

"It's not like we can do anything about it, Fitz," the Doctor said, looking grimly at the sixties singer. "I don't like it, but the best thing we can do right now is work out how these Cylons actually 'work' and see if we can find something that will help the fleet identify those missing five."

"To do what?" Compassion asked. "From what I've seen, I think these people would be more likely to just airlock any other Cylons they found-"

"That was _before_ they accepted one of the Cylons as a member of their fleet," the Doctor corrected, looking firmly at Compassion. "They have a precedent to confirm that not every Cylon out there is only interested in killing them, and even Sharon Agathon has confirmed that the other Cylons don't know much about these 'Final Five'; if we find them in the Fleet and can prove that they haven't done anything, I might be able to arrange for a peaceful… well, I don't like to use the term 'surrender'…"

The Doctor paused for a moment before he sighed in frustration as he stared at the papers and notes before him. "I'm sorry; I just feel… well, I'm not used to being this _lost_ …"

"We're talking about more than the fact that you don't know where we are, right?" Fitz asked.

"Quite," the Doctor said. "Believe me, I want to make getting these people to safety my primary concern, but I can't simply ignore the fact that we've never heard about this fleet before, even in some of my other trips back into your planet's more distant past, but then we have everything they believe about the Greek pantheon to take into account…"

"And then there's all that stuff we just heard about the star being about to go supernova," Compassion put in.

"They said it could be any time in the next year-"

"Are you going to believe these people, or the woman with inbuilt sensors and an increased awareness of everything going on around her on various dimensional levels that the rest of you aren't aware of?" Compassion asked with a slight smile.

"Good point," the Doctor noted with a smile. "Sorry, I'm still adjusting to being able to _talk_ to someone about this…"

"Hold on, are you saying that you're able to _sense_ that the star's about to blow up?" Fitz asked, looking urgently at Compassion.

"An explosion like this can cause a disruption in more than normal space; I'd need to be aware if I was passing through the Time Vortex within a certain range of this kind of thing so that it didn't damage my systems," Compassion explained. "I can't narrow it down to more than the next few hours when I'm 'grounded', but I feel safe in saying that nothing here can cope with an explosion like that if we stay here for too long."

"Uncanny timing, when you think about it," the Doctor mused, looking thoughtfully around the room as though he was taking in the ship as a whole. "Of all the stars that could go supernova, it's this one, just before these people can investigate that Temple down there, just before we arrive and make contact with them ourselves…"

He paused for a moment before he finally shrugged. "Ah well; probably just coincidence."

Fitz wondered if the Doctor genuinely believed that or not, but this wasn't the time to ask questions about something that he doubted his friend could answer when they had bigger problems to deal with. Lost for anything better to do, he turned his focus back to the paperwork in front of him, but the more he read about these 'Cylons', the more disturbed he felt.

It wasn't that he hadn't encountered evil during his time with the Doctor, but most of the time the attacking enemies were acting on a fairly small or specific scale, and on those occasions where things became bigger it at least felt like a 'fair' conflict; the idea that these Cylon things had destroyed twelve planets and then basically tried to rule what was left of humanity because they were annoyed at what had happened earlier…

He could kind of get why the Cylons had lashed out, but it still reminded him a bit of some of the stories he'd heard about how the Nazis got to power by exploiting the way everyone had kept Germany down after the last war; maybe these guys were too used to being angry to stop on a large scale.

"Anyway," the Doctor smiled hopefully, taking Fitz's mind back to the present, "on a more upbeat note, I can say that I like what I've seen of Admiral Adama and President Roslin so far; their anti-Cylon issues aside, they seem to be genuinely focused on saving their people rather than just killing the enemy."

"Which is a good thing for them," Compassion mused as she looked back at the Doctor. "I think you'd be less inclined to help the Cylons if _they'd_ found us first, after all."

"That depends," the Doctor said, shaking his head as he looked at another folder.

"On what?"

"Well, as I already mentioned, we already know that Sharon Agathon's defection proves that not _all_ Cylons hate humans… but I can't shake the feeling that there's more to this vendetta than just the belief that the humans would lash out at them at some future date," the Doctor said, looking grimly at his friends. "I can appreciate that some of the Cylons felt that way when they started this twisted plan, but at the same time, I find it hard to imagine that an entire race capable of changing their minds would _all_ share this same blind hatred after over three years, particularly when so many of them were apparently sleeper agents who wouldn't have known they were working for the destruction of those they were working with…"

"Unless something's _making_ them look at it this way?" Compassion finished for him.

"Someone's controlling the Cylons?" Fitz asked.

"If it was control, I think they would have done something about Lieutenant Agathon by now," the Doctor countered, shaking his head grimly. "No, what we're dealing with here is someone, or something, who has a specific vendetta against the human race and is using the Cylons to further that agenda; what we need to work out is whether it's someone they know about or not…"

Despite the Time Lord's grim mood, Fitz knew the Doctor well enough to recognise that his interest had been revitalised by this discovery.

It wasn't that the Doctor liked violence or having enemies- Fitz doubted that anyone sane would _like_ having enemies- but he guessed that his friend appreciated the potential evidence that they were dealing with something more obviously malicious than people- or robots- being idiots about the past.

If there was one thing that the Doctor thrived on, it was exposing how people were manipulating others…


	7. Cylon Analysis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're going to be jumping straight to the end of 'Eye of Jupiter'/beginning of 'Rapture' now, as there was no significant impact to the rest of the first episode's storyline caused by the Doctor's arrival; hope you like it
> 
> If anyone wonders why the Doctor didn't wonder about the near-launching of the nuclear warheads after when the Cylon raiders were launched, I'm assuming that the conference room and other areas weren't alerted by the alarms as _Galactica_ wasn't set to full alert status due to them not being in a full battle.

After hours of going over everything the Colonial Fleet currently knew about the Cylons, along with raising and dismissing possible theories about what might be responsible for potentially manipulating them, the Doctor was grateful when Admiral Adama returned to the conference room; he might not be able to give them any positive news, but at this point any new information would be welcome.

"What happened?" he asked, his usual flippant mood quickly averted when he saw the grim expression on the admiral's face.

"Lieutenant Sharon Agathon has just been shot."

" _What_?" the Doctor and Fitz shouted.

"Wasn't she the Cylon?" Compassion asked, looking probingly at Adama. "As in, isn't she just going to resurrect… which will be the problem, right?"

"Why did she do that?" the Doctor asked, looking at Adam with a more pointed stare. "I assume that your only Cylon ally wouldn't go back to her own people lightly?"

"She just learned that her daughter has been in Cylon custody since we left New Caprica," Adama said grimly.

"Daughter?" Fitz repeated, looking back at the papers on the table in surprise. "But… hold on, there was something in these files… didn't the kid die?"

"I was unaware that my chief medical officer and the President had conspired to fake the child's death in the name of her 'protection'," Adama said grimly.

"What?" the Doctor said, in a low voice that Fitz knew didn't bode well for anyone who earned that kind of tone.

"According to President Roslin, they were concerned about the risk if the child was allowed to grow up with the Cylons aware of her existence," Adama explained his tone solemn. "I don't approve of what happened, and right now we're all hoping that Lieutenant Agathon is going to come back to us, but…"

He sighed as he looked at the Doctor. "I've ordered her body be moved to the morgue, and we're going to give her time to get back so that Athena can make her own decisions about what to do with it, but if you want to… take a look yourself…"

"Thank you," the Doctor nodded at the admiral as he stood up, appreciating the admiral's obvious discomfort at the current topic. "I have a couple of ideas for what I could find without needing to actually do anything _too_ invasive to the body, I assure you; Fitz will be fine looking over the files, but if Compassion and I could just… have a few moments alone with it?"

"I'll… see what I can do," Adama said, nodding at the Time Lord, a moment of silent gratitude passing between them for his acceptance of the situation.

The Doctor didn't like how rapidly the current situation seemed to be degenerating, but so far he was going to operate on the assumption that the humans were at least trying to atone for their past mistakes and take it from there.

Besides, with all the theories he was currently trying to juggle in his mind, a chance to directly analyse one of the human Cylons would greatly help him refine his current ideas…

* * *

Considering that she had been acting as an arms dealer and an indirect agent of Faction Paradox when she met the Doctor, Compassion wasn't entirely comfortable being in the _Galactica_ 's morgue. It wasn't that she wasn't used to death, but it was more that she wasn't used to it being so 'in her face'; the Remote's biomass bodies had tended to break down fairly quickly once they died on Anathema, and she didn't stick around to keep an eye on the bodies of anyone who died during her travels with the Doctor.  
  
Maybe it was just the morality she'd 'inherited' from the Doctor's original ship via its connection to him, but ever since she'd been transformed, it was the little things that bothered Compassion more than she'd ever expected. On top of the knowledge that she was potentially immortal herself, death was something that made her even more uncomfortable despite, or perhaps because, she could never experience it herself.  
  
Still, she understood why the Doctor had wanted her here; Fitz definitely wasn't better with dead bodies than she was, but she had a few advantages in her new state that Fitz couldn't offer. It had taken the better part of an hour for Adama to talk with Roslin and Cottle to make the necessary arrangements to allow the Doctor and Compassion into the morgue with the absolute minimal amount of notice given to the rest of the crew, but the Doctor appreciated the value of secrecy right now and was determined not to betray the admiral's gesture.  
  
"Right," the Time Lord said, looking thoughtfully at the discarded body of Lieutenant Sharon Agathon lying in the middle of the morgue, her peaceful only slightly marred by the single cleaned bullet-wound in her head. "Let's get on with this."  
  
Understanding what he meant without needing to ask for more, Compassion opened herself up as the Doctor picked up Sharon's body, the Time Lord walking nonchalantly into her and making a few quick adjustments on her console.  
  
"Wait-!" Compassion began as the Doctor pulled on her dematerialisation lever, only to calm down as she felt Time shift around here without feeling a need to fully dematerialise. "What did you just do?"  
  
"Temporal orbit," the Doctor explained, smiling up at Compassion's ceiling as he always did when they were talking inside her. "It bypasses the Randomiser as I've disabled the spatial systems, and you're more dipping a toe in the Vortex rather than actually staying in it; add in the fact that we're in space rather than on a planet, and we're fairly safe."  
  
"I… see," Compassion's voice replied. "And you're doing this because…?"  
  
"Because I'd like a few moments to look over Lieutenant Agathon's body here before I form an assessment of what Cylons are capable of, and the less time we're in here the fewer questions the admiral will have to answer later on," the Doctor explained, as he picked up the corpse and carried it towards the walkway leading deeper into Compassion's self. "I take it you've found your medical bay?"  
  
"…Follow the lights," Compassion said after a moment's pause, followed by a series of lights coming on that led away from the console area, past the Doctor and Fitz's rooms into a darker part of the interior. Academically, the Doctor supposed that this made sense- while some of the rooms reflected Compassion's psychological state, the infirmary was a purely practical necessity for a ship that had therefore been 'delegated' to the part of her she didn't access much- but this thought was forgotten in a moment of nostalgia as he opened the door to reveal a room so like the rarely-used sick bay of his old ship.  
  
He'd never liked using this thing for anything more than giving new companions their universal vaccinations, and its facilities were fairly limited when it came to dealing with anything more than simple illnesses or broken bones, but it was still a reminder of the home he'd lost so many months ago…  
  
Shaking the thought off, the Doctor laid the body down on the nearest bed before wheeling over a medical scanner, taking a few moments to let it finish its work before he studied the results.  
  
"Anything?" Compassion asked.  
  
"A few details, anyway," the Doctor mused. "It's so subtle that the _Galactica_ wouldn't have noticed it without an in-depth MRI, but there are some slight traces of silicon in the brain and some light-sensitive connection units in their hands, as well as a concentration of nanites and electrical particles around the spinal column that seem capable of low-level transmissions; that may be how these models are able to 'download' into new bodies in the first place."  
  
"As well as accelerating their own neural abilities?"  
  
"Quite possible; this concentration of silica pathways would allow them to process data faster than a human brain would be capable of," the Doctor said, shaking his head thoughtfully as he looked at the readouts. "The problem is it's _too_ sophisticated for something that was clunking around like a standard robot just forty years ago."  
  
"Does this tie into our discussion earlier?"  
  
"Precisely," the Doctor nodded. "I don't care how intelligent these machines think they are; it should be impossible to go from inorganic robots to something that can mimic the human form to such an extent we need your sensors to be absolutely _certain_ we aren't dealing with a human being in less than four decades. The resurrection technology could have just been incorporated into the spinal column as a fixed unit, but instead it's somewhat spread out across the brain, and the data interface systems in their hands and arms are so integrated into the biology that they can even link up to more conventional computers so long as they have a direct means of data input. Even you needed some kind of wireless signal for your transceiver to pick up before you can do anything, and the transceiver itself was an obvious addition to what you were before you joined the Remote; there components were all essentially _grown_ to be part of the overall physiology."  
  
"So something helped the Cylons become more human so that they could destroy the human race…" Compassion mused.  
  
"Yes and no."  
  
"Pardon?" Compassion asked, surprised at the contradiction. "They created the perfect sleeper agents-"  
  
"And then gave those agents the desire and ability to have children with humans?" the Doctor pointed out, shaking his head as he studied Sharon. "It's obviously hard to be certain when I'm working with a dead body, but I wouldn't be surprised if all that stuff in the files about how love was necessary for the child to be conceived was more than just Sharon being idealistic; I think that the Cylons _need_ to fall in love with humans to achieve the right emotional state to trigger the ability to reproduce…"  
  
"And why would anyone design them to be capable of that if they were just going to destroy the human race anyway?" Compassion finished for him.  
  
"Precisely," the Doctor nodded. "I wouldn't be surprised if the Cylon models aren't even capable of getting each other pregnant; they might consider each other siblings, or whoever did this may have designed them not to be cross-fertile with each other."  
  
"So someone simultaneously programmed these things to destroy the human race and then made it impossible for them to progress _without_ humans?" Compassion finished. "That makes no sense."  
  
"To say the least," the Doctor said, nodding thoughtfully at the body before them. "The question is, are we dealing with someone who changed their plan and couldn't alter their biology, or are we dealing with _two_ plans?"  
  
Compassion had to admit that she was starting to see the Doctor's point; there was definitely more to this mystery than just killer robots that wanted to wipe out the human race, but there was equally no way to know what that 'more' actually was…  
  
"Anyway," the Doctor shrugged as he looked up at the ceiling, "get us out of the temporal orbit and I'll get her back to the morgue; I need some time to think about this…”


	8. Full Disclosure

The Doctor had been in several unusual situations since he'd first left Gallifrey, but while some situations were ones he'd never wanted to face while others were just odd rather than dangerous or terrifying, this was definitely one of the stranger; talking with the husband of a woman whose body he'd just 'dissected' when the man in question had rational reasons to believe that his wife would come back.

"Captain Agathon?" he asked, knocking awkwardly on the door that had been identified as the Agathons' quarters. For a moment, there was no sound, but then the door opened and a young man opened it, a hostile glare shifting to confusion as he looked at the Doctor.

"Who the hell are _you_?" he asked, a biting edge to his tone that the Doctor quickly decided not to take personally; considering what this man had been through recently, he was just grateful for any chance to talk.

"I am the Doctor," the Time Lord replied, smiling at him. "A few of your colleagues found my friends and I on the planet we're currently orbiting?"

It was probably an awkward time at best, but with Sharon still absent, this had struck the Doctor as the best chance he might have to get the captain's perspective on the Cylons in general and his wife in particular before she came back; from what he'd heard about the Cylon neural network, he wanted to be sure that Sharon couldn't give the other Cylons any information on him by accident before he introduced himself.

"You were… found on the planet?" Agathon repeated, looking uncertainly at the Time Lord, hostility replaced by confusion. "Who are you?"

"Just a traveller trying to help out," the Doctor said with a smile. "And on that topic, I wanted to let you know that I admire your decision regarding that virus."

"The virus?" Agathon repeated.

"I read about what happened when you found that Cylon ship," the Doctor explained; as always in his experience, the rapid shift of topic had distracted Agathon from his earlier questions for the moment. "I know there's nothing explicit, and if I'm wrong I apologise, but if I'm right… well, even if you weren't the one responsible, I wanted to assure you that I understood the reasons for doing that more than you might expect?"

"How?" Agathon asked, looking curiously at the Doctor.

"Well, I read your file, and… let's just say you're not the only one who decided that ending a war wasn't worth the moral costs," the Doctor said, his tone particularly solemn as he looked at Agathon. "Whatever else we did in the past, when it truly counted, you and I both recognised that even ending any possibility of future death wasn't worth the price we'd have to pay to defeat our enemies."

"It doesn't mean everyone else felt that way," Agathon said, his tone grim even as he looked at the Doctor with a certain tentative acceptance.

"That's the way of things," the Doctor smiled. "The point is that, no matter what else happens since, there are times when we all have to consider what we're willing to do in order to win, and you recognised that what you'd become if you did that would make you worse than what you were trying to stop."

For a moment, the two men sat in silence, the Doctor waiting for Agathon to respond, until the younger man smile.

"Thanks," he said, looking curiously at the Time Lord. "So… who are you anyway?"

"You may prefer to ask the admiral about that; I'm not sure you'd believe me even if I told you," the Doctor smiled at the young soldier, before he looked more solemnly at him once again. "But for what it's worth, from what I've heard of your wife, I think she'll be back sooner rather than later."

The Doctor wished that he could do more, but at the moment, everything was out of his hands; he just didn't have the resources he used to possess, and after all the effort it had taken to get Compassion to accept the Randomiser he wasn't comfortable removing it even if he could be sure where he'd find anyone.

With nothing else he could say to help Karl Agathon's current situation, the Doctor gave the young man one last smile before he walked out of the room.

The conversation hadn't accomplished much for either of them, but he'd introduced himself to a man he had a feeling he'd be getting to know in more detail the more time he spent with this crew; if he was staying around, he'd need to talk to more people than the admiral, the president, and the doctor.

It was a strange feeling to actually look forward to staying somewhere for a while, but after everything that had happened since Avalon, the Doctor would appreciate the chance to just rest somewhere for a little while; he might enjoy travelling, but as Ian had once noted, not having a choice made it harder to appreciate what you had.

For the moment, however, all he could do was wait to see how things would unfold later; as long as some of the crew were on that planet, the _Galactica_ and the Cylons were locked in a stalemate, and the only question was if they were going to resolve it before the star exploded.

He hated feeling this helpless, but without a TARDIS that he could control and the Cylons' current stand-off, he'd already exhausted what he could offer right now…

* * *

Looking around the conference room, Adama had to admit that this had certainly been the most interesting day he'd had for as long as he could remember. Not only had they uncovered a potential clue on the next step of the path to Earth- even if he didn't entirely understand how the carvings in the Temple could have predicted a supernova centuries in the future at just the right time for it to help them- but they'd even acquired a very interesting new potential asset in the form of the Doctor and his strange companions.  
  
After everything they'd lost since the Cylons returned to attack the Colonials, it seemed like the last real 'victory' they'd had in their constant fight for survival was when they'd originally encountered Pegasus- setting up habitation on New Caprica barely counted as a win in his view considering the ecological state of that planet- and even that had been tainted by the discovery of Cain's various war crimes. The clue to Earth might be questionable, but even if the rational part of him wanted to argue that he knew just as little about the Doctor, some deeper part of him just made it feel… _right_ … to trust the Doctor's offer of help.  
  
It was that part of him that had prompted his decision to arrange the current conference. What he was about to tell everyone might be unusual, but at least it was mostly positive. Considering the state of things on that planet towards the end, he wasn't sure if he should be more amazed that the team had made it off the algae planet with only one casualty, or that they'd managed to get away with Baltar and that Number Six as a prisoner, but even those victories paled in the face of what he was about to reveal.  
  
"All right," he said, looking solemnly around the table, taking in the chosen attendees; the Doctor and his companions, the President, Colonel Tigh, Doctor Cottle, the Agathons, Lee, Kara, Dee, Sam Anders, Lieutenant Gaeta, and Chief Tyrol and his wife. "I've brought you all here because I think, of everyone on _Galactica_ , you are all the ones I can most trust with this information, while also being senior enough to use it if the situation comes up."  
  
"Use what?" Sam asked, before his gaze shifted to the Doctor. "And what are they doing here?"  
  
"We're part of the announcement," the Doctor smiled politely at the former Pyramid player. "I heard about what you accomplished during your time on that planet; a very neat job considering that you didn't have formal training before this war started."  
  
"We do what we can," Kara shrugged, looking probingly at the strange man. "And who are you?"  
  
"I am the Doctor," the Doctor replied with a smile. "And these are my friends, Fitz Kriener and Compassion; Compassion is from the former colony world of Anathema, and Fitz is from Earth."  
  
That simple statement attracted incredulous stares from everyone who hadn't already heard this news, including a few shocked gasps from the Agathons and Gaeta.  
  
"No frakking way…" Kara said, her damaged hands forgotten as she looked at Fitz with a broad grin. "You're from _Earth_?"  
  
"Born and raised," Fitz shrugged.  
  
"But before you ask," the Doctor interjected, holding up a warning hand, "we can't give you directions because we don't know where it is."  
  
"Excuse me?" Dee asked, looking at the Doctor in confusion.  
  
"To cut a long story short, my ship's navigation systems haven't been operating as efficiently as they could," the Doctor explained. "As a result, I can't be sure exactly where this planet is in relation to anywhere else I've been before, which means that I can't be sure where you are in relation to Earth, as much as I'd like to help you."  
  
"I see," Dee said, her expression slightly sceptical as she looked at the Doctor.  
  
"Believe me, if I could help you find a planet, I would, but right now I don't have anything to work with," the Doctor shrugged. "I'm not sure precisely where I am now in relation to Earth, and all my usual navigation charts were lost a while ago; all I can do is offer what knowledge I have to try and help you find it."  
  
"And he's got a _lot_ more to offer than Earth's location," Fitz put in with a smile. "Trust me, what the Doctor doesn't know about science isn't worth knowing; I've seen him deal with everything from freaky special anomalies to stopping advanced alien schemes with just whatever he's got in his pockets-"  
  
"Aliens?" Sharon looked at him in shock. "As in… sentient non-human life-forms?"  
  
"There are real _aliens_?" Lee said incredulously.  
  
"I've seen a few-" Fitz began.  
  
"But we're fairly sure they're nowhere near this part of space," the Doctor put in, placing a hand on Fitz's arm as he looked reassuringly at the young major. "Believe me, the Cylons are the only thing you have to worry about at the moment, and I'm going to do everything I can to get you away from them."  
  
"And you think you can do that?" Kara asked, looking him over sceptically.  
  
"To be blunt," the Doctor looked grimly back at the young woman, "what have you got to lose by letting me stay?"  
  
"I agree," Roslin said, nodding as she looked around the table. "I appreciate that this is an… unconventional situation for all of us, but if the Doctor and his friends are willing to assist us, I for one am not going to turn down further help."  
  
With that said, she sat back and looked over at the Doctor. "That said, you realise that we will have to be… discreet about your presence; I'm sure you don't want to have to deal with some of the more… questionable members of our fleet."  
  
"Seriously?" Fitz looked at her in surprise. "You're dealing with killer robots, and some people here are still complaining?"  
  
"Seems to be human nature that you can't please everybody even if you keep saving their asses," Kara smiled grimly, before looking at Adama. "I take it they'll be staying here?"  
  
"Lieutenant Gaeta has already agreed to work on finding suitably private quarters for the Doctor and his associates as long as they're with us," Adama explained. "Officially, the Doctor has agreed to act as our scientific advisor until we reach Earth; any paperwork or requests relating to 'John Smith' will be relating to him."  
  
"John Smith?" Chief Tyrol repeated, looking curiously at the Doctor. "That's your name?"  
  
"It's what I go by," the Doctor said, before looking over at Lieutenant Gaeta. "Anyway, assuming that we won't have to worry about the Cylons for a little while, could we see those quarters and give me a chance to check over your star-charts? After that 'Eye of Jupiter' incident with the nova, I'd like to see if there's anything else out here I recognise…"  
  
As the Doctor and his two companions followed Gaeta out of the room, Adama nodded at the rest of the attendes that they could depart as well, leaving him to stare thoughtfully at the door as he contemplated the thought that had just occurred to him.  
  
He didn't doubt the Doctor's story, and he strongly doubted that any of the three were Cylons, but that still left him with one crucial question that the Doctor had subtly gone to great lengths not to bring up; where had his ship been, and why hadn't he asked anyone to collect it once the Colonials had started treating them as friends rather than prisoners?  
  
What wasn't the Doctor telling them…?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of an abrupt ending, but since the Doctor couldn't have much impact on these events, I thought it was more important to get on with the main plot of this story and get _Galactica_ moving once again. He may not be particularly involved in the next few episodes, considering that these events are fundamentally based around people being flawed rather than external intervention, but I do have some plans for the future regarding Kara, Baltar and the Final Five that I hope will prove interesting…


	9. The Two Eights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To anyone who wanted me to jump straight to Baltar's interrogation, I apologise, but I wanted to let the Doctor attend to his curiosity about a few Cylon-related details first and foremost

Walking up to the door of the Agathons' cabin for the second time in as many days, the Doctor smiled slightly at the thought of his previous visit and the reasons for this one; he might be here to visit a completely different person, but his fundamental motive for being here was still the same.

"Sharon Agathon?" he asked, smiling politely at the young woman as she opened the door, her daughter cradled in her arms.

"Yes…" Sharon said, looking at him with a slightly pointed stare. "What are you doing here?"

"I just wondered if it would be possible to ask you a few questions," the Doctor explained, smiling reassuringly at her.

"About what?" Sharon asked, the Cylon defector relaxing slightly even as she remained tense. "Why we destroyed the Colonies?"

"Oh, nothing like that; I might consider humanity my favourite species, but I'm not blind to their more negative qualities, so I can guess how that happened even if I don't approve of it" the Doctor said, waving that issue off as he walked into the cabin. "As far as your defection goes… well, I know that this might sound trite, but I understand what you're going through."

"You do?" Sharon looked at him, a sense of curiosity about her manner even if there was a slight edge to her posture.

"I'm actually… on the outs with my people at the moment myself," the Doctor explained with a grim smile. "It's not for the same reasons, of course, but the basic principle still applies; we each realised that we couldn't agree with our people's plans on moral grounds, no matter the evidence that doing things their way was the only way, and decided to side with someone else instead."

"Really?" Sharon said, studying the Doctor in a more suspicious manner. "That's…"

"Quite a coincidence?" the Doctor said, smiling nonchalantly at her. "Possibly, but you'd be surprised how many times those happen; I've often found myself arriving in places at just the right time to be helpful, after all…"

He waved a hand awkwardly as Sharon looked at him with a new curiosity. "Anyway, that's not important right now; on an immediate note, I have to confess that I came here because I was curious about your design."

"My design?" Sharon repeated, clearly thrown at the unusual topic of conversation.

"Not just _your_ design, of course, but the human-form Cylons as a whole," the Doctor explained. "I was just curious how your people actually made this kind of 'evolutionary leap' so quickly; I appreciate that you're brilliant, but going from metal and wires to… well, _this_ in less than forty years a very significant leap even in my considerable experience."

"I… don't know much about that, I'm afraid," Sharon said, shaking her head slightly as she adjusted her grip on her daughter. "Once all of the active models were completed, the Cylon race… well, we stopped producing any new models."

"In other words, whoever designed you felt that twelve of you was enough?" the Doctor asked, curious despite himself; he didn't want to push Sharon too hard in case he triggered some kind of sleeper program to stop the Cylons thinking too hard about their origins, but it could be helpful to see just how much she did know.

"Maybe…" Sharon said, shaking her head as she looked at the Doctor. "I just… I don't think any of us really thought about it."

"Interesting…" the Doctor said, tapping his chin contemplatively. "Actually, that leads neatly into another topic; what can you tell me about these so-called 'Final Five', and why are you Eight?"

"Excuse me?"

"I mean, the other six models known to the Colonial Fleet are all straightforward enough, but if there's only seven of you, and these 'Final Five' are somehow different from the standard Cylon models, shouldn't your model be Seven rather than Eight?"

"I…" Sharon said, looking uncertainly at the Doctor for a moment, briefly confused before she shook her head as uncertainly was replaced by apprehension. "I don't know…"

"You don't know?" the Doctor repeated curiously.

"I don't… I never even _thought_ about that," Sharon said, looking at the Doctor with dawning shock. "I just… _accepted_ that I was Number Eight; I never even thought about the fact that I should be Seven…"

"Interesting… so not only do you defy numerical conventions, you don't even know _why_ you skipped a number," the Doctor mused, looking thoughtfully at Sharon.

"Why are you asking me all this?" Sharon asked, looking indignantly at the Doctor. Trying to rub it in that I'm not human? I know I might not have been _born_ or-"

"Your origin isn't an issue to me, Sharon," the Doctor said, holding up a reassuring hand. "I'm simply trying to understand how the history of your people fits together with what I've learned about Colonial history and technology; as far as I'm concerned, any gaps in your own knowledge are just natural ignorance rather than anything else."

"Oh," Sharon said, looking at the Doctor with new sympathy. "Sorry."

"It's all right; I can understand knee-jerk reactions," the Doctor smiled reassuringly at her. "I'd offer to try and see if I can find anything myself, but honestly, if we assume that your people were created as… well, a product line… your line was probably created without any knowledge of the Sevens, if they were ever actually _made_ in the first place. I suppose I could try talking to that blonde Cylon they found on the planet, since she's apparently a Six-"

"Don't," Sharon said firmly.

"I can't trust that one?"

"Trust isn't the issue; until we've decided what to do with her, you _can't_ talk to her," Sharon said. "If she manages to find a way to get back to the rest of the Cylons, she'd be able to tell them everything she's learned while she's here, which would include anything she learned from or about you, and that's even without downloading."

"Download- oh, when you're uploaded to new bodies after being killed," the Doctor said, looking at Sharon in surprise. "So when you 'download'… you enter a network and are sent to a new body?"

"Well, we're not constantly exchanging signals with each other, but when we download prior to resurrection any new experiences we've gained are added to the mainframe so that the other Cylons can draw on it," Sharon explained. "Key knowledge is mostly shared among the models who originally received it, which is why the Fours are regarded as the best doctors even though all of us could have that knowledge downloaded, but general information such as what ships are in the fleet and who's in key positions would be distributed all across the grid."

"I see… And the same thing applies to you?"

"Once I was resurrected on the baseship, they would have had complete access to everything I learned since I came here," Sharon confirmed. "The Admiral's already changed every passcode I knew or had access to so that the Cylons can't try and use them later, but my memories would still be available in the data stream even if they wouldn't have the emotional context."

"So no hope of simply forcing everyone to realise they're wrong by seeing humanity through your eyes…" the Doctor said, nodding thoughtfully for a moment before he shrugged. "Well, it's good to know what won't work, anyway."

"Won't work for what?"

"Convincing the Cylons to stop this war without destroying humanity," the Doctor said, looking resolutely at Sharon.

"What?"

"Oh, I want to protect this fleet as much as you do, but if your presence here proves anything, it's that the Cylon race as a whole _can_ be more than what they've shown themselves to be so far," the Doctor said firmly. "I have fought evil, Sharon Agathon, and your people aren't on that level yet; if there's a way to make them stand down, I _will_ find it."

Looking at the strange unnamed man as he sat before her, dressed in clothing that reminded her of old novels she was never sure if she'd read directly or just been programmed to know, Sharon was suddenly struck by the intensity in his eyes.

She had no idea how he might convince the Cylons to abandon their decades-long vendetta against humanity, but she also suddenly knew that if anyone was going to do it, it would be this man.

The only question was if the other Cylons would even want to listen to him…


	10. Contemplating Interrogation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding Baltar's interrogation, it's taking place around this time, as are the other events of "Taking a Break From All Your Worries", but I won't be looking at any of those storylines directly as the Doctor wouldn't have much to contribute during the interrogation, and he and his companions have other issues to assess right now that take precedent over trying to get involved in the personal lives of people they've only just met.
> 
> I make reference to Fitz's time with the Remote here, so a brief explanation for those who haven't read the novels. Basically, a few novels before the destruction of the TARDIS, Fitz was abducted by Faction Paradox and trapped in the past, where he became a member of a colony known as 'the Remote', who 'reproduced' by using remembrance tanks to recreate the deceased based on others' memories of them, with these remembrances naturally changing from the original as time went on (the main reason the otherwise sterile colony chose remembrance as a means of 'reproduction' rather than cloning that would just recreate the deceased over and over again). When the Remote arrived on Earth (and would paradoxically contribute to the events that led to Fitz being abducted in the first place), the Doctor encountered the version of Fitz that existed after two centuries of being 'remembered' back to life, and was able to restore this Fitz to basically the original version by using his and the TARDIS's own memories of Fitz. At this point, Fitz is aware of his 'true' origin but doesn't think about it much, reasoning to himself that he is basically Fitz Kriener as he and the Doctor are certain that the original Fitz died during his time with the Remote

Fitz had no idea what it said about his mental state these days that he actually missed the days when people were trying to kill him. He appreciated the chance to rest and enjoy himself as much as the next person, but even if the Colonials were willing to accept him and Compassion while the Doctor did whatever he was doing, he just felt like he was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. He supposed he could attribute it to the fact that the Colonials themselves had admitted that there were still five Cylon models unaccounted for, which meant that pretty much anybody could be an enemy agent and even they wouldn't know about it, but a part of him wondered if it was something else…

And no, he _wasn't_ worried about anyone thinking he was a Cylon or anything crazy like that; what the Remote had done to him and what the Cylons did weren't the same thing! The Doctor had told him more than once that he was biologically human as far as any tests would confirm, and that was all he needed (he wasn't going to think about the whole thing with his memories coming from the TARDIS; he was still _Fitz_ where it counted as far as the right people were concerned)…

Still, for the moment, the issue of the Cylons and the Fleet's attempts to reach Earth in this era were the main things to worry about. Since the Colonials didn't have the sensor range to plot a jump directly into the Ionian Nebula from this distance, they were making gradual jumps in that direction while the Doctor and Lieutenant Gaeta went over their star charts in case they managed to find a better 'road-sign' to Earth. This left Fitz and Compassion with little more to do than look around and take in more of the ship while the Doctor worked, even as Fitz did his best to maintain a low profile. Those present at the briefing had agreed to keep the fact that Fitz came from Earth a secret, but all of them knew that it would only take one slip-up to put him in an awkward position, and that was before any of these people knew about the time-travel angle.

Fitz might have enjoyed attention back on Earth, but it was different being appreciated for his singing and being hounded for stories about Earth when he already knew he couldn't tell anyone the truth in case it created some kind of time-travel mix-up. He didn't know what he could say if they were as far back in time as the Doctor suggested, but when even the Doctor didn't know anything about the future of the Fleet, Fitz agreed that it was better to err on the safe side.

Taking an experimental sip of what passed for a drink on _Galactica_ , Fitz wasn't sure if he should be disturbed at the taste or impressed that they had actually managed to make any kind of drink considering what he'd heard about the fleet's food issues. While the Doctor had speculated that Compassion may have a food machine inside her somewhere, he had also mentioned that the results would be so relatively tasteless that eating the processed algae that the rest of the fleet used would be more straightforward and stop anyone asking potentially awkward questions. Fitz still wasn't sure what story had been passed down to the lower ranks to explain why he and Compassion were given so much leeway when going around the ship, but he wasn't going to ask around in case it gave the game away. As it was, they attracted a few stares, but with the Doctor acting as the admiral and president's chief scientist, it seemed like nobody wanted to press his official 'assistants' for much either.

Looking over at Compassion, Fitz supposed that she was the main reason he wasn't having to deal with any awkward questions. The living TARDIS hadn't expressed any concerns about staying in one place for an indefinite period of time, and even if nobody knew what she was, she could still carry off that same edge that she'd developed with the Remote that made it awkward for people to approach her, and by extension anyone she was sitting with.

Glancing around the makeshift bar, Fitz smiled morbidly as he saw Lee Adama and Galen Tyrol awkwardly talking with the women he was fairly sure they were married to; Adama had a certain urgency about his manner that Fitz couldn't entirely place, but Tyrol and his surprisingly petite wife just looked particularly awkward.

"Something amusing?"

"Just… people-watching," Fitz shrugged as he looked back at Compassion, indicating the two couples with a brief nod. "It's almost morbidly amusing, when you think about it; the world's ended, and this lot can still find time to worry about their personal lives when they're dealing with genocidal robots and don't even have a planet any more."

"In my experience," Compassion noted dryly, "humans make a mess of things even under the best of circumstances; I hardly think it's surprising that they would continue to do so in a situation like this."

"Well…" Fitz shrugged. "You just think the last survivors of a whole civilisation would shape up a bit more, I guess; hold on to tradition, try not to screw up…"

"That's the Doctor's influence," Compassion noted solemnly. "Hope for the best, but you need to learn that he also prepares for the worst."

"Still sucks," Fitz said, wincing at the drink as he took another sip; it seemed to vary sharply in quality and flavour every time he drank a bit. "And I'm not sure if we should be glad they've got the news service still going or not; how many news options can you have when your civilisation's this small?"

"This isn't just about the state of society, is it?" Compassion asked, looking thoughtfully at Fitz.

"…Well, it is, kind of," Fitz shrugged. "I mean, Dad didn't really talk about the war that much, and I didn't like to listen to it anyway, but all that stuff we've been reading about that Zarek guy talking about how the people needed to step up… just reminds me of some of Dad's stories about the Nazis."

"I don't recall him preaching against particular ethnic groups-"

"Not in that way, more in the 'blame other people for the fact that life sucks' way," Fitz clarified. "Everything I read about him was more about blaming the current leaders of this fleet for getting everyone into this mess without clearly saying what he'd do differently beyond getting in charge himself. There's some stuff about a book he wrote that made a few points, but so far what he's done in this fleet just sounds like he's winning a lot of attention without actually saying what he'd change."

"I've looked at those old articles, and from what I recall, Mr Zarek hasn't said much on that topic since the Fleet left New Caprica-"

"You've got potentially everything the TARDIS had on the Doctor knocking about in there, and you haven't picked up enough to know that someone like that doesn't change his spots that quickly?" Fitz asked, looking at grimly at his new means of transport. "I'm not saying he hasn't calmed down a bit, but someone like that guy? Wouldn't surprise me if he's just waiting for a time when it's all calmed down a bit so he can step in and point fingers at everyone else for making the mess."

"That's… surprisingly insightful of you," Compassion noted, raising an eyebrow as she looked at him.

"You grow up hearing about that kind of thing, you notice it when it's all going on again after you've had a bit of time to pick up the details," Fitz said, shaking his head as he took another sip of his drink. "Just have to hope that's not going to be a problem for us before we've deal with the main issue right now…"

* * *

"Yes, that Tom Zarek _could_ be a problem," the Doctor said, nodding in agreement at Fitz's assessment before smiling at his friend. "Quite frankly, I'm impressed at your degree of insight, Fitz."  
  
"Hey, we're normally just in a new place long enough to deal with the immediate issue; if we're going to hang around here for a while, I wanted to be sure we knew the general picture beyond killer robots," Fitz said, before his expression became grimmer. "Besides, I grew up hearing a few tales about someone like him…"  
  
"Good point; he might not be motivated by perceptions of racial inferiority, but there is a prejudice issue there that we can't ignore," the Doctor nodded at his friend before studying the paperwork before him. "Actually, it would be best if you could keep an eye on the broader details here; even without the question of the Cylons' conflicting agendas, these people are giving me a surprising amount of material to work with that's open to a variety of interpretations…"  
  
"You're getting all that from Doctor Baltar's interrogations?" Compassion asked, looking at the pile of paperwork in front of the Doctor curiously.  
  
"Transcripts from the interrogations and accompanying notes about his history just before the destruction of the Colonies and his own subsequent role in this fleet," the Doctor clarified. "It's actually fascinating, in its way; before the colonies fell, Doctor Baltar was a strong supporter of the idea of returning to research in artificial intelligence, arguing that humanity shouldn't allow itself to be 'scared' from further research in this field just because of the Cylons, and then he was found by a raptor looking for survivors before the fleet had to leave the Colonies."  
  
"At which point he was the best scientist they had left, right?"  
  
"Considering that he was the best _before_ the worlds ended, that's hardly a surprise," the Doctor nodded. "He was persuaded to accept the position of Vice-President when Laura Roslin officially reformed the Colonies' primary government, mainly because of the good publicity, but he went on to run for the presidency himself when the time came for the next election."  
  
"Yeah, that bit I don't really get," Fitz noted. "I was asking around, and apart from suggesting they settle on that planet that ended up being a crap choice all around, doesn't sound like Baltar really did much while he was acting as President, so why would he have even tried to get elected in the first place?"  
  
"It was probably more of an ego thing than anything else," Compassion mused.  
  
"Most likely; Baltar's need to appease his ego appears to be his biggest drive, when I get down to it," the Doctor acknowledged, turning back to the transcripts in front of him. "Actually, that would tie in to the most interesting thing about these interrogations…"  
  
"You find anything interesting about interrogations?" Fitz asked, looking sceptically at the Time Lord.  
  
"I don't agree with the idea, but I'm not going to completely ignore what comes up in them just because of the methods used," the Doctor clarified, before he turned back to the papers before him. "Anyway, assuming all these notes and recordings are accurate- and despite what some people would have us think, Laura Roslin strikes me as an honest woman so far- I find it interesting whenever he's questioned about the theory that he was involved in the original Cylon attack, Baltar never says that he didn't do anything."  
  
"Excuse me?" Compassion asked. "How is that relevant?"  
  
"And where did that theory about him being involved in the first attack actually come from?" Fitz asked. "I get that people don't like the guy, but I haven't heard anything about the idea that he was working with the Cylons before the worlds were blown up?"  
  
"It's a theory that Laura Roslin has; there are apparently hints that Baltar was seen with a woman identified in hindsight as the Cylon woman Sharon Agathon calls Number Six before the attack, but obviously we don't have any concrete evidence of it," the Doctor explained. "Anyway, my point is that, during these interrogations, Baltar states that he wouldn't do anything to hurt a man's family, or that he didn't conspire with the Cylons in the attack, but he hasn't said anything to rule out the possibility that he might have been _tricked_ into helping them in some way. After all, before the attack, nobody in the Colonies had reason to believe that the Cylons had assumed human form; it wouldn't be impossible to assume that Baltar had contact with a Cylon agent and gave them what they were looking for assuming it was just for purposes of industrial espionage or something."  
  
"I don't see anything about that theory here," Fitz noted, glancing over the papers in front of him for a moment. "Why haven't you mentioned that?"  
  
"Because it's just an observation," the Doctor explained. "Don't misunderstand me, from what I've heard about him I fully agree with any assessment of Doctor Baltar as an idiot genius with a particularly self-centred view on everything around him, but I don't _know_ for a fact that he did anything."  
  
"Idiot genius?" Fitz asked.  
  
"A broad range of knowledge on several complex topics and a complete inability to put that knowledge to practical use; what I've found about his educational background showed a greater skill in biological rather than computer science, so a few of his technical victories are likely either aided by luck or external forces," the Doctor clarified. "Add in everything he said about 'God's plan' in his last interrogation, and I'm inclined to think that he also has an inability to face intense negative emotions, so he copes with them instead by essentially shifting blame on to a higher power."  
  
"To give the impression that he can't have any individual responsibility for his actions?" Compassion asked.  
  
"Would that link with that bit here about him wanting to be a Cylon?" Fitz asked, indicating the relevant part of the interrogation notes.  
  
"Essentially, yes; if he was a Cylon then he wasn't a traitor but was set up to destroy the Colonies before he even began, which absolves him of responsibility as he was just following his programming," the Doctor nodded at his companions. "I don't know what he did or didn't do, and I don't think he's a Cylon, but I'm inclined to think there are a few secrets in his closet, and more importantly, he feels guilty about something even if he's psychologically incapable of acknowledging it."  
  
"Ties into that 'idiot genius' bit?" Fitz asked with a smile.  
  
"Precisely," the Doctor nodded, smiling back at his friend before his expression became grim. "Unfortunately, if we're dealing with a very intelligent man who's simultaneously convinced himself that he's the victim in everything, it's going to be very difficult to get the truth out of him…"  
  
"Can't you just try and talk to him yourself?"  
  
"I'm good, but I'm not exactly a qualified psychiatrist, Fitz," the Doctor noted, before he sighed. "Besides, I'd rather not do something that potentially controversial until I _know_ I can get results…"  
  
"You're worried about how you'll look to people?" Fitz asked in surprise. "You normally just dive in…"  
  
"We're going to be here for a while, and this isn't twentieth-century Earth, Fitz; I have no contacts and no history with anyone here. They may have accepted me as their unofficial scientific advisor out of a lack of alternatives, but I haven't done enough to earn their respect yet, and our position here is too fragile for me to try and assert any kind of authority."  
  
"You think they'd turn on us?" Compassion asked.  
  
"I think they're scared human beings dealing with an impossible situation; in that position, people can do anything," the Doctor clarified solemnly. "These people may have colonised twelve planets, but we have no evidence of alien contact, and their history with the Cylons would likely discourage them from being too quick to trust."  
  
"I suppose there's only so much any of us can do about prejudice," Compassion said, the three of them sitting in silent reflection as they looked back at the last two locations they'd visited before arriving in the Temple. The mods and rockers might have turned to their conflict out of a lack of anything else to do in the city rather than any genuine prejudice, but the only way to end the conflict had been to put everyone in a new environment, and it had taken the destruction of the city to deal with the 'conflict' between the slimers and the Eskoni.  
  
"In any case," the Doctor continued after the moment's contemplation had passed, "the end result is that I don't want to rock the boat and give the senior staff a reason not to like me this early on, which means we have to pace ourselves with what we reveal and what we try and change beyond anything that obviously helps with the Cylons."  
  
"Any luck on that front?"  
  
"Still trying to put together the conflicting strategies, actually; it just doesn't fit together…"  
  
The Doctor paused in thought for a moment before he shrugged. "On the brighter side, Lieutenant Gaeta has found a nebula that looks like a likely mark on the route they're tracing to Earth; apparently a nebula not too far from here was created when a star went nova about the same time as the thirteenth tribe was allegedly travelling this way, which has prompted speculation that this nova was what inspired the designs in the Temple."  
  
"That seems a bit of a stretch," Compassion noted.  
  
"In terms of us getting here in time to see _this_ star go nova, yes, but on the other hand, it does give them a plausible destination," the Doctor said, nodding in acknowledgement of his friend's point. "Keep in mind that when even we don't know where we're going, the best thing we can do is follow the man provided and hope for the best."  
  
The idea of the Doctor having nothing more to fall back on than hope didn't make Fitz completely comfortable, but he supposed it was the best any of them could do in a situation like this.  
  
Still… even if he understood why the Time Lord preferred to stick around with this fleet rather than keep on running, he worried about what it said for a man to keep chasing other peoples' problems instead of facing his own.  
  
He appreciated that losing the TARDIS meant more to the Doctor than just losing a means of transport, but that didn't stop him worrying about his friend's mental state…


	11. Meeting of the Doctors

Standing outside Baltar's cell, the Doctor wondered what it said about humans that their civilisations tended to treat prisoners the same way.

There were variations across the universe, naturally, but confinement and varied deprivation of key resources was always a constant. He tended to approve of it over the death penalty in most cases, as at least this method gave the prisoners a chance to improve their outlooks on life, but there were times when he wondered if it wasn't almost crueller than simply ending their suffering.

Of course, if this man was guilty of the crimes the Doctor thought he was guilty of, anything that forced him to think about what he'd done was a good thing in his book; maybe the man would finally face what he'd done if he had nothing else to do with himself…

"And you are?" the former President asked, after the two men had stared silently at each other for a few minutes.

"Doctor John Smith, Doctor Baltar," the Doctor nodded at the other man; he might be planning to talk to the man, but he wasn't going to give Baltar any reason to question his sanity until he had what he was looking for. "I'm… well, I'm your replacement."

"Replacement."

"As scientific advisor to the president, anyway; I have no interest in your _other_ previous positions," the Doctor clarified.

"I see," Baltar said, looking the Doctor over with a critical glance. "And you came here to ask for tips?"

"Actually, I just came to ask how it feels to be the stupidest genius I've ever met."

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, I'm not denying that you've had some impressive breakthroughs considering your limited resources in this fleet, but that aside, you're very limited," the Doctor clarified, enjoying the stunned look on Baltar's face; even after everything else had gone wrong in his life, the Doctor doubted that anyone had called this man 'stupid' before now. "You either failed or self-sabotaged your assigned duty to create a Cylon detector, your victory in attacking that mining facility was almost certainly luck more than anything else, your political career carried so little weight I think people only voted you in because you sound good, and I think we can all agree that the less said about your time as president the better."

"I saved Laura Roslin's life-"

"With a measure that could have occurred to any other medical professional; you just lucked out in being the one to voice it first," the Doctor said firmly. "Frankly, Doctor Baltar, you need to accept that you're better at selling yourself than actually accomplishing anything useful; no matter what the outcome of that upcoming trial I've heard about, you're never going to progress as a person if you don't accept the need to take your own ego out of the picture."

"It's not arrogance when it's fact-"

"And that ties into something else I've observed about you," the Doctor cut in. "What was with your comments during that stand-off above the algae planet about a higher power being responsible for this?"

"It can hardly be coincidence-"

"Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, but the idea that it _must_ have been something more is what smacks of arrogance in my view. Sometimes things just happen, Doctor Baltar; it's a human response to want to find meaning in tragedy, but sometimes there just isn't one."

"I _survived_ -"

"As did several other people, as the fact that we're even having this conversation proves. You can't pin everything on higher powers, Doctor Baltar; you need to take responsibility for your own actions and their consequences, instead of passing it all on to someone else and claiming that you were just a pawn."

"A _pawn_?"

"You prefer to imagine that something's controlling you than that you can act on your own; that sounds like a pawn to me," the Doctor smiled. "Claim that you have some role in a greater plan if you like to think you're important enough for anyone up there to notice you, but personally, I prefer free will over thinking something else has complete control of my actions."

With that said, the Doctor turned around and left the cell, not even looking back at Baltar as he closed the door behind him. He doubted that anything he'd said would make a clear impression on Gaius Baltar, considering the scale of his ego and potential fear of facing the consequences of his actions, but he was satisfied that he'd done the best he could to make a point to the man in question.

He didn't think that Baltar had deliberately betrayed humanity to the Cylons in the original attack, but there were far too many questions about his behaviour since the Fall of the Twelve Colonies for the Doctor to feel comfortable letting that man think he was going to get away scot-free with anything. He believed in giving everyone a chance, of course, but sometimes they needed to realise that they needed it, and nothing he'd read about Baltar or experienced in that talk suggested that the man was psychologically capable of such a thing without a serious kick.

Doing things this way was difficult, but if he was going to be with the Fleet for a while, he had to do more to at least make himself feel like he was making a difference; the Cylon threat was too removed for him to do anything against them right now, and the Fleet didn't have the resources for him to help them upgrade anything.

He hated feeling so limited right now…

* * *

"They're rejecting medication?" Compassion looked sceptically at Fitz, as the three time-travellers sat in their shared quarters on _Galactica_ and discussed the events of the latest day on the ship. "Why would they do that?"  
  
"It's a religious thing, apparently," Fitz shrugged awkwardly. "I couldn't really ask for more details without giving away that I'm not from around here, but it sounds like each planet had its own take on their religion, and everyone from this particular colony stereotypically has some… _thing_ against using actual medicine because they think it's unnatural or something."  
  
"A whole colony? That does mean a _planet_ with these people unless I've misread a signal, correct?"  
  
"A few people have put those traditions aside, certainly, but that doesn't change the fact that Sagitarron is generally seen by some as the key colony that the other eleven have always looked down on," the Doctor noted, sighing dejectedly as he looked at his two companions. "I'd like to argue that humans can overcome old prejudices, but with everything lost in such a violent assault, I suppose it's only natural that they hang on to anything of their old lives even if those parts weren't exactly pleasant ones."  
  
"Life," Fitz groaned, rolling his eyes in exasperation. "Why can't people just get over it?"  
  
"The greatest question I can't answer," the Doctor shrugged. "As for the disease issue you mentioned, maybe I could see if I can develop some new treatment that can be administered via the air filtration system in relevant ships so that they don't actually _know_ they're taking the medicine, but that's more treating the symptoms than the main issue, particularly if Captain Agathon is correct about his theory that someone's killing the Sagittarion victims of this disease…"  
  
"Ideas?"  
  
"For the antivirus, a few possibilities come to mind, but for the possible killer, no immediate ideas," the Doctor shook his head grimly. "You have to keep in mind, Fitz, this is a very primitive society by the standards of some space-faring organisations we've encountered; I just don't have the resources to do more than what I've done so far."  
  
"Then why stay?" Compassion asked. "I appreciated your suggestion about how this gives us time to move on without the Time Lords detecting me-"  
  
"There _is_ a mystery here, Compassion," the Doctor looked firmly at the sentient TARDIS, tapping the paperwork scattered over the table in their current quarters. "We have the immediate problems, and maybe we can't do much about social conflict, but we can make these people see that there has to be another solution to this mess than just trying to destroy the Cylons or constantly running from them."  
  
"And the Cylons?"  
  
"One of the many things I wish I could answer," the Doctor said, sighing in exasperation. "If I only knew _what_ we were dealing with, maybe I could do something, but I'm still stuck on whether we're dealing with a changed plan or a hi-jacked one."  
  
"Well, at least it's not boring," Fitz shrugged. "And food aside, there are worse places to be; at least it's cool and nobody's trying to kill us or insist we join them over the other guy."  
  
"Haven't we done that anyway?"  
  
"We're on the Colonials' side because the Cylons destroyed twelve planets and didn't even declare war first; we can all agree that the mods and rockers never even gave us that much," the Doctor noted. "Conditions aside, the Colonials have been nothing but fair to us after our initial contact, and their genuine priority seems to be survival over killing the Cylons; I don't think we can extend the same courtesy to the other side at the moment."  
  
Fitz didn't ask if the Doctor had any ideas on that front either; if the Doctor knew what to do about the Cylons, he would have said something already.  
  
As it was, with no further clues to go on about the possible identities of those unknown five Cylons, or any explanation for the various inconsistencies he'd discovered in their design, they were just stuck in a loop…  
  
"Doctor?"  
  
"Madame President?" the Doctor said, looking up in surprise as Laura Roslin walked into their room. "Is something wrong?"  
  
"I… wanted a neutral opinion on something," the older woman said, looking uncertainly at Fitz and Compassion.  
  
"Anything you have to say to me can be said to them," the Doctor said before Roslin could ask the question herself. "What's the situation?"  
  
"Gaius Baltar."  
  
"Has something happened?"  
  
"Not so far," Roslin replied. "And that's part of the problem, really; I just had a discussion with Tom Zarek where he supported the idea of declaring martial law during Doctor Baltar's trial to prevent the media frenzy that would result if I left it as it was…"  
  
"And you're concerned that he's right?" the Doctor asked.  
  
"Shouldn't I be?" Roslin asked.  
  
"Wouldn't everybody just be clambering for the guy's head anyway?" Fitz asked. "I mean, he basically handed everyone on that new planet over the Cylons for four months; he can't exactly be liked after all that…"  
  
"Unfortunately, Mr Kriener, Baltar remains a very… controversial figure," Roslin explained. "Some have argued that he could have done nothing else during the occupation but surrender, or that his actions may have limited the scope of what the Cylons did to those left on the planet…"  
  
"People can excuse anything with the right incentive," Compassion mused. "Add in the fact that your current administration has its problems, it's only natural for people to turn to the alternatives if they feel the existing one doesn't work."  
  
"A sad fact of human nature, in my experience; people play up the flaws of what's there because they imagine that the alternative will be better," the Doctor mused. "Fitz's father had to deal with that sort of problem, actually; his country was in a troubled state and elected a leader who… well, things didn't go well."  
  
"I… see," Roslin said, looking uncertainly at Fitz for a moment before she decided not to press the matter. "In any case, while I acknowledge Tom Zarek's point, I wanted a more… independent… opinion on the right course of action…"  
  
"I understand," the Doctor smiled reassuringly at Roslin before nodding grimly at her. "Give Baltar the trial."  
  
"Even with the risk of a media circus?"  
  
"Even then," the Doctor confirmed. "There are always risks, Madam President, but the most important thing in a situation like this is to show that what you have works, no matter how difficult it might be to do so."  
  
"Thank you," Roslin nodded gratefully at the Doctor. "I… appreciate that view."  
  
"Sometimes you have to believe that people won't fall as far as you worry they will, Madame President," the Doctor smiled. "It might seem naïve, but if you don't have faith, how are you going to get anywhere?"  
  
"To degrees, anyway," Roslin smiled. "On the topic of faith, regarding the Sagittaron issue…"  
  
"I'm working on a cure that can be dispersed via the air supply; I'll let you know when I have any more to offer," the Doctor nodded.  
  
"Thank you," Roslin smiled. "We appreciate your efforts on our behalf, Doctor."  
  
"It's what I do," the Doctor smiled, hoping that he wasn't over-estimating his abilities.  
  
He knew what he wanted to do, but even with whatever he could salvage from Compassion's interior labs and the Fleet's own resources, he had to be careful not to suggest that he was more capable than he was; this Fleet had to survive on their own merits or he couldn't be sure if he was having too much influence on the original course of events…


	12. Compassionate Secrets Exposed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, I decided to just skip the events of 'Taking a Break From All Your Worries' as that episode was just about Lee, Dee, Kara and Sam's personal issues amid the flashbacks to life on New Caprica, so nothing happened that the Doctor and his companions would even be aware of, much less have much influence on.
> 
> Besides, I think you'll be very satisfied with the twist I've included for the events of this chapter regarding the Doctor's relationship with the _Galactica_ senior staff

It was probably strange to consider a rag-tag fleet that held the last remnants of a lost civilisation as somewhere to take a rest, but in a morbid way, this really was one of the better places that the Doctor had stayed in for more than a few days. The food could be better, of course- even with Compassion's food machine and kitchen to provide alternative sustenance, they needed to eat sometimes to stop anyone asking awkward questions- but he found himself enjoying the company of the ship's senior staff, and there were enough little jobs around the ship for him to occupy himself during his nightly wanderings without any of the Colonials realising how little he slept.

He might not be able to do much, but between trying to put together the pieces of the mystery of the Cylons, or offering Lieutenant Gaeta what insight he could about how to find a route to Earth, he liked to think he was still making those little differences that he'd told Zoe were so important after that mess on Ockara. For today, he'd volunteered to fix a broken water line in the galley to spare the rest of the maintenance staff for other responsibilities, which, while a simple job, it kept his hands and mind occupied for a little while.

_It's just frustrating that I have to do that to feel like I'm doing anything here…_

He knew that Fitz in particular worried about him since Avalon, but it wasn't like he had time to find a therapist and talk about how he felt about recent events in his life. Even if he knew someone qualified to treat him who'd also believe him, he couldn't take the risk that the Time Lords would find him if he tried to override the Randomiser, and right now the Fleet had bigger problems than one man missing an old friend.

Still, as hiding places went, even with the threat of the Cylons, the Doctor felt that the time in the Fleet was proving to be a good experience for his companions. Compassion seemed to trying to interact with other people more than she might have done in the past, and Fitz was getting along with some of the senior staff who knew about his real history…

As he reached the galley with the broken pipe, the Doctor sighed inwardly as he crouched down and took in just how simple the job was; he was committed to helping these people, but quite frankly, he hadn't been this bored since that time he'd lost the TARDIS and his companions in Byzantium. Even during his exile to Earth and that time he'd been trapped on the Divergent planet in the anti-time universe, he'd had some other project to keep himself occupied, but for now all he had was several big questions and no idea how to find the answers. He'd been tempted to throw in his own opinion regarding Roslin's attempts to work out the legal rules for Baltar's trial, but he'd quickly decided that this was something the Colonials should handle themselves; he could work with existing legal systems, but trying to shape a society that he wouldn't be a permanent part of felt too arrogant for his comfort.

As it was, he'd found himself reduced to a simple mechanic so that he had some task to occupy himself when he ran out of ideas, while Fitz and Compassion spent their time mingling with the general populace to get a better feel for the state of life in the fleet. He appreciated the value of the little pieces, but he was used to being able to make a bigger impact than this; he hadn't left Gallifrey to fix up pipes…

He shook that thought off as he adjusted the knobs around the pipe to stop the water while he replaced the damaged section. He preferred being able to make a bigger impact than this, but when you didn't know where you were or what was going on, sometimes all you could do was a bit of quick maintenance.

On a personal level, he had to wonder what was up with the admiral today. He'd passed by the man in the corridor this morning, but although Adama had responded to his greeting, something in his manner had reminded the Doctor of his time with the Brigadier in Avalon, as though the seemingly older man was hiding some greater pain he didn't want to share. He had no intention of prying into the matter- if Alistair had taken so long to tell him about Doris's death when they'd known each other for years he certain wasn't going to make Admiral Adama tell him what was bothering him now unless it became a problem- but it did make him wonder…

"You OK there, sir?" a voice asked.

"Oh, I'm fine… Hotdog, wasn't it?" the Doctor asked, stepping up from the pipe to look at the younger Viper pilot. "Just dealing with a cracked pipe."

"Really?" Hotdog looked at him in surprise. "I thought you were the president's scientific advisor?"

"That doesn't mean I can't get my hands dirty, does it?" the Doctor smiled back, grabbing his coat from where he'd left it on the ground when he started work.

"Guess not," Hotdog shrugged. "Sorry 'bout that; we all got so used to Baltar staying in his lab even when he was just the scientist…"

"We're not all that neurotic," the Doctor grinned at the other man; he didn't like lying to someone who seemed perfectly friendly, but he had to be careful when dealing with matters in the Fleet. "Doctor Baltar's problem was that he wanted to be a celebrity for his brilliance; I'm happy enough just getting the job done even if nobody knows I was here."

"Same with anyone here, I guess," Hotdog smiled. "We'd just be faces in the crowd if the Colonies weren't lost, but now we're the last line of defence, everyone knows our names."

"The balance can be awkward, but I like to think you're all coping well enough," the Doctor said, understanding the darker part of Hotdog's last comment and wishing he could do more about that issue. "Anyway, the pipe's sorted now-"

The sound of an alarm blaring interrupted whatever he might have said next, prompting the Doctor to drop his tools and hurry from the gallery, Hotdog just behind him. He didn't know what had prompted that alarm, but if there was a problem, he wanted to find out what was going on as soon as possible in case there was anything he could do. He was only half-way to the control room when he nearly ran into Admiral Adama and Colonel Tigh going the other way, Tigh grabbing him by the arm and dragging him after them.

"Can I ask-?"

"Two of my people are trapped in a sealed airlock and running out of air," Adama cut in, as Tigh pushed the Doctor forward to walk alongside the admiral. "Can you do something to get them out?"

"I'll see what I can do," the Doctor nodded in response, already brainstorming possible solutions to the problem described; it would obviously depend on the exact nature of the damage, but he wasn't going to give up without even trying.

He still had no clear plan how he was going to save this fleet, but if he could save any lives here and now, he wouldn't give up until he knew that it was impossible.

After a few more minutes of walking while being briefed on what had actually happened, their small group came to the damaged airlock, the Doctor joining Adama and Tigh in the control room off to the side after the Doctor had confirmed that the door to the airlock itself was sealed shut.

Looking at the airlock through the window, the Doctor noted that the battle damage from the initial Cylon attack had left the airlock interior scarred, but it seemed as though the actual mechanical components had only been damaged by the shockwaves rather than anything tearing in the airlock itself. On a superficial level, it meant that there was little in the way of obvious damage for anyone to fix, but on a practical level it eliminated the immediate hope that he could just find a convenient hatch that would let Tyrol and Cally do something about the problem themselves.

As Adama reassured the two deckhands that he would do his best to get them out, the Doctor was already brainstorming possible solutions. Cutting through the doors would take too much time given the size of that breach and the rate at which they were losing air, anything powerful enough to destroy the glass in the observation room would kill Tyrol and his wife at the same time, and while it might be possible to rescue them by opening the doors with a Raptor waiting just outside, it would still be cutting it closer than the Doctor would like…

It was at that moment that another idea came to the Doctor.

It would risk giving away his greatest secret to these people, but with lives at stake, he had to have faith that he'd made enough of an impression on the Colonials by now that they wouldn't immediately throw him and Compassion out of this airlock if he was wrong…

"Admiral Adama," he said, holding out an arm to stop the admiral as he turned to leave the room, "do you trust me?"

"Doctor-" Adama began.

" _Do you trust me_?"

"…Yes," Adama said after a moment's silence, looking thoughtfully at the Doctor as he spoke, as though considering his response even as he made it. "You're an unusual man with strange motives, but… I trust you."

"Thank you," the Doctor nodded at him, his gaze fixed on the admiral to ensure that his new ally understood the importance of his next request. "I have a plan to get them out, but I need you to clear this area of everyone but essential or senior personnel that you _know_ you can trust with a great secret."

"Which is?"

"I'll explain once it's over," the Doctor said firmly. "Right now, we have less than an hour to get Chief Tyrol and his wife out of that airlock; we don't have time to get into long discussions."

After exchanging another stare with the Doctor, Adama nodded, turning to the crew to issue his orders while the Doctor hurried to the phone in the airlock; he was fairly sure he remembered where Compassion had said she was going to spend the day, but there was always a risk that she'd changed her mind…

* * *

"We're seriously waiting for the alien to come up with something?" Tigh asked, looking sceptically at Adama with his one remaining eye as the Doctor paced in front of the airlock, the area evacuated of all but Adama, Tigh, Gaeta, Lee, and a couple of the more long-standing _Galactica_ marines. "He's talked a lot, but-"  
  
"He hasn't let us down yet," Adama interjected. "Gaeta and Lee have their teams brainstorming other options if whatever the Doctor has planned doesn't work, but he's already been more use to us than Baltar was in all those months before New Caprica."  
  
Tigh might be uncertain about the Doctor as a person, but even he had to acknowledge Adama's point. Baltar had pulled off what could have been a lucky break when he'd identified the weak spot of that Cylon mining facility, and saving Roslin from her cancer had certainly helped, but after the man's dismal failure at creating a Cylon detector and his equally poor performance as President, it had affected most of the crew's views on the man's scientific abilities.  
  
The Doctor might not have had many opportunities to prove himself so far, but he had at least shown that he never promised anything unless he was certain he could deliver on it. The real test now was what he thought he could do about _this_ particular turn of events…  
  
"Yes?" Compassion asked, the Doctor's strange companion walking up the corridor to casually study the assembled _Galactica_ senior staff. "What did you call me for?"  
  
"This airlock's jammed and we have two people trapped on the other side of it with a hull breach draining their air supply," the Doctor explained, patting the airlock door in question. "I appreciate that this isn't what you normally do, but if you could allow Fitz and I to enter you, do you think you might be able to help us get through _this_?"  
  
"Hold on; you both enter _her_?" Gaeta looked at the Doctor and Compassion incredulously. "As in-"  
  
"As in this," Compassion said, as she walked up to lean against the door, before…  
  
Adama had no idea how to describe what he witnessed; it was as though the strange redhead had suddenly spread her arms and turned into a large hole in the middle of the airlock. As Adama and his crew could only stare in shock, the Doctor walked through the hole and nonchalantly led Tyrol and Cally out of it, the two shivering but alive, followed by the hole… stepping away… to turn back into Compassion.  
  
"How was that?" the Doctor asked, looking curiously at Compassion even as he crouched down to rub Tyrol's back, helping the larger man warm up as the chief wrapped the shivering Cally in his arms.  
  
"Uncomfortable," Compassion shrugged. "I can do it, but it feels like I'm trying to ignore-"  
  
" _What the_ _ **FRAK**_?!" Tigh yelled, storming up to haul the Doctor away from Tyrol and slam him against the wall. "How by all the gods did she _do_ that?"  
  
"If you'll put me down, I'd be happy to explain," the Doctor replied, smiling politely at Tigh despite the older man's harsh words.  
  
"Colonel," Adama said, allowing Tigh to put the Doctor down before he faced the other man himself. "I trust you have an explanation for this, Doctor?"  
  
"Certainly," the Doctor smiled, looking around at the rest of the crew before he indicated Compassion. "If you would just step inside, you may find it easier to believe what I'm about to tell you."  
  
"Inside?" Gaeta asked, before Compassion stepped forwards and opened out into a darkened door, this time clearly not leading to anything the crew could already see.  
  
"Inside," the Doctor nodded politely at the other man, before he stepped into the door himself. "If you would?"  
  
After exchanging a glance with Tigh and Lee, Adama stepped forwards to enter the door that had once been a woman, followed by his son, Tigh and Gaeta. There was a moment of total darkness, and then the four men found themselves staring around a room so deep and dark that they couldn't see the bottom, with a six-sided console on a central platform in front of them. The console itself appeared to be made of stone, with harsh edges and various controls on its various panels, as well as a strange crystal in the centre of the console made of a substance that Adama didn't recognise.  
  
" _Incredible_ …" Gaeta said, staring around the room in awe before he looked at the Doctor, who was standing nonchalantly at the side of the console. "What… how is this possible?"  
  
"It's dimensional transcendentalism; a key secret of my people," the Doctor explained. "We're essentially existing within a completely separate dimension from Compassion's exterior right now; we're still connected to her, but obviously we aren't actually _inside_ her."  
  
"So… is this why you never asked us to go back for your ship on the algae planet?" Lee asked the Doctor, studying the fleet's new scientific advisor with a thoughtful glance. "Because… Compassion _is_ your ship?"  
  
"Compassion is my _companion_ ," the Doctor corrected, glaring pointedly at Lee. "The fact that she is my current transport is irrelevant to that."  
  
"Right…" Lee said, having the decency to look uncomfortable when he was challenged on that point.  
  
"How the _frak_ is this even _possible_?" Tigh asked, glaring at the Doctor in frustration as he waved his hands at their surroundings. "I don't care if you're a fracking alien, nobody can have all… _this_ inside them!"  
  
"Normally, yes, but Compassion was exposed to a very… unique set of circumstances," the Doctor explained. "To make a long story short, her colony world of Anathema had a very complex society that led to Compassion having an unusual receiver literally wired into her brain that left her susceptible to all kinds of external signals and influences. I wanted to give her a chance to develop as herself rather than changing depending on what someone was transmitting in her area, so I linked her receiver to my original transport in the hope that it could act as a filter, but I failed to consider that the receiver would take in the signals it was receiving from my old ship and convert them into block transfer computations-"  
  
"Into what?" Gaeta cut in.  
  
"A highly complicated form of mathematics that can basically recreate any object so long as sufficient detail is provided for the original calculations," the Doctor explained. "I don't fully understand how to do them myself without a great effort, but I understand how it works; I just never anticipated that Compassion's receiver would adapt the signals she was receiving from my own ship in such a manner, with the result that she was transformed into… well, _this_."  
  
"Sums turned an ordinary woman into _this_?" Tigh asked, indicating the console room incredulously. "And if you had your ship all the time-"  
  
"Because I was being honest when I said that my ship's flight records were scrambled," the Doctor explained. "After Compassion was transformed, I was forced to go on the run from my own people because…"  
  
"Because his people basically want me as breeding stock to create a new fleet of ships like me," Compassion's voice cut in from the ceiling, prompting the Colonials to jump in shock as they looked up at the voice. "The Doctor chose my freedom over the desires of his people, and we left before they could take me into 'custody'."  
  
"OK…" Lee said, nodding awkwardly at the ceiling before he looked back at the Doctor. "So… what does this have to do with your flight records?"  
  
"Part of my efforts to keep Compassion safe involved installing a randomiser into her systems," the Doctor explained, patting a small box with a red-handled lever on the console. "Essentially, the randomiser constantly feeds random information into her navigation systems so that my people can't track her as even _I_ don't know where we're going, but the cost is that I can't be sure where I'm going even if I have some reason to go somewhere specific."  
  
"And… you can't just disconnect this… randomsier?" Adama asked.  
  
"Not without causing Compassion intense pain, and even then it wouldn't help me work out where I am _now_ ," the Doctor clarified. "Even if I disconnected the randomiser right now, I still wouldn't have the exact coordinates of our last destination, which means I can't be certain where we are in relation to Earth until she next materialises somewhere."  
  
"Materialises?"  
  
"She basically travels in a similar manner to your own jump-drives, moving from one place to another without physically crossing that territory."  
  
"Ah," Adama nodded.  
  
"But… the power she'd need to do that…" Gaeta began.  
  
"I can't tell you how that works," the Doctor cut in, holding up a hand to halt the lieutenant. "I've already told you a great deal about myself that I wanted to keep secret, but I'd rather not share any more than I absolutely have to in case… well…"  
  
"The Cylons find out," Adama finished for him.  
  
"Among other possibilities," the Doctor nodded grimly. "You have to trust that if I could do anything to help you beyond what I'm already doing, I would have done it by now, but as it stands, the best I can offer is helping you work out where Earth is in relation to our current position based on your star charts and my own knowledge."  
  
Looking around the strange console room of their new ally's unconventional mode of transport, Adama was surprised to find that he appreciated the other man's perspective. It was strange to think of a woman as being a means of transport, but from what the Doctor had told them, she had one key advantage over even Sharon as she had apparently started out as human rather than being created in this state, and he was now only acting to protect a friend from what he perceived as unjust treatment.  
  
"We understand," he nodded at the Doctor at last before looking over at the rest of his crew. "So… we'll keep this between us."  
  
"Keep this secret?" Lee repeated in surprise.  
  
"Whatever Miss… Compassion… is, it doesn't change the fact that she's here to help," Adama said firmly. "I will inform President Roslin and the Agathons of this… discovery… but that's as far as we go for the moment."  
  
"Probably for the best," Tigh muttered, glancing around the console room. "Hell, _I_ don't get how I'm going to cope with this fraking thing right now…"  
  
The Doctor simply nodded at Tigh as the group moved out of the console room, Compassion returning to her original appearance as the last of the Colonials left her interior.  
  
Adama wasn't going to say that he had been expecting this discovery, but as he looked at the strange young woman who had joined their journey to Earth, he felt better knowing even this bizarre fact about her.  
  
Besides, whatever else the Doctor was, he always made it clear that he had no ambitions to be a public figure, which made him a significant improvement over Baltar in Adama's view.  
  
Why was it that people who wanted attention could never be satisfied unless they had it all?


	13. Debating Doctors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few doubts about the main content of this chapter, but I hope you enjoy the Doctor's talk with Baltar before the concluding revelation, as I decide to use Whoniverse continuity to clear up my biggest question about an element of the BSG mythos...

"Can you _believe_ these people?" Fitz asked as he walked into their small compartment.

"In what way?" the Doctor asked, looking curiously up from the papers he'd been working over.

"Just… something I heard around that bar in the lower decks," the young man said, sitting down opposite the Doctor. "I thought these guys realised that they'd have bigger issues to work on what with the whole 'killer robots destroyed our worlds' thing, but I just heard one of the deckhands complaining about how someone's promotion was turned down because they think that none of the senior staff want people from certain colonies to be in positions of power."

"Really?" Compassion looked at Fitz in surprise.

"It can't be _that_ big an issue, surely?" the Doctor asked, looking uncertainly at Fitz. "I mean, I appreciate that these people have problems with inter-colony interaction from what I've read of their history, but as you said, there are bigger things to worry about right now…"

"Doctor," Fitz looked at his friend, "I get that you like to think the best of people, but this isn't the kind of situation that helps people show their best. No offence, but you're used to being there when everything's just gone to crap and people have to rise or fall right now or they're dead; everyone's been stuck in some kind of freaky limbo until these Cylon things stop trying to kill them and/or they find a good planet, so they just end up turning to their old issues to have something to complain about that isn't terrifying."

"It's the Maker's world all over again," Compassion mused. "They can't accomplish anything with what they have, so they turn to what they know because it's easier."

"…Fair point," the Doctor sighed, nodding in acknowledgement of his companion's point. "I should have taken that into account; I suppose I just… wanted to believe that Alec and Rick's groups only went that far because they had literally _nothing_ else to do…"

"And here they have something to focus on and the means of doing it but they're still going that far anyway," Fitz finished for his friend. "Yeah, I wish we had something to hit too…"

"Hardly that simple, Fitz," the Doctor noted, scowling briefly at his companion before he sighed and stood up. "But maybe I should talk with Bill and Laura and see if there's anything I can do about any of this…"

"This isn't exactly a problem that you can solve with some of your usual tinkering, Doctor," Compassion pointed out. "You said yourself you've never even encountered this type of star drive before now-"

"But that doesn't mean I can't try," the Time Lord pointed out, before he walked out of their room.

That was the trouble with Compassion, really; she was becoming so much more than human, but she still had trouble appreciating the importance of emotional support even if explicit help was impossible…

* * *

As he walked towards Baltar's cell, the Doctor once again cursed the chain of events he'd been dropped into, particularly after his recent briefing from the admiral and the president about that labour strike. He always liked to tell himself that he had learned when he needed to take a step back and let humanity handle their own problems while he dealt with the external threats, but looking back, how much of that attitude had been motivated by his own knowledge that they'd come through their problems themselves most of the time?  
  
He could turn down Winston's request for the TARDIS key because he knew Britain would win the war eventually, he'd tried to stay out of that mess with the Mongols before he'd found that alien prisoner because he knew they'd eventually stop, he'd limited his roles in Waterloo to stopping the Countess and Davros changing things, he'd only become so involved in the Selachians' final stand because Zoe had been caught up in that mess… but right now, when he had a blank slate and no clear idea what would happen to these people, he wanted to help but had no idea how to do so. His greater experience and scientific background wasn't any use when he didn't have enough resources available to effect any kind of long-term change, and while he'd volunteered to check out the situation on the tylium ship, trying to take responsibility for all the repair work this fleet would need to get back into perfect shape was an exercise in futility at best. As Colonel Tigh had noted during that mess with the airlock, it would take at least three months in drydock just to hammer out the dents in _Galactica_ , never mind everything else that was wrong with the fleet.  
  
Talking with the admiral and the president had allowed him to establish that the reason for the latest bout of civil unrest was apparently a book Baltar had written prompting the rest of the fleet to start asking a few questions about the long-term social implications of their current society. After glancing over the book, while the Doctor disapproved of the consequences of Baltar's actions, he had to admit that he agreed with some of the points the text had brought up, particularly when he'd conducted a quick bit of research and confirmed that the higher-ranked members of the remaining fleet tended to come from particular worlds in the former colonies, while those from other colonies never seemed to get the chance to grow (although he liked to think that those responsible for promotions promoted for skill and the problem was partially that the relevant colonies didn't provide as many opportunities to train their people in the relevant skills).  
  
On the one hand, the idea of someone complaining about issues such as spare parts and compensation seemed excessive when they were dealing with an entire fleet that had survived an apocalypse-level attack by killer robots, but on the other hand, the workers' comments about harsh living conditions wasn't totally unreasonable, particularly when there was the simple issue of cabin fever to take into account.  
  
 _I became frustrated when I had an entire planet available to me during my exile; I can't expect humans to cope well when they're stuck in these ships for months._  
  
He could appreciate that the people were frustrated by their circumstances, but at the same time they had to be aware that they weren't going to be around to complain if the next Cylon attack happened when everyone was trying to refuel or something like that. Even with Compassion's secret known to key members of the fleet, he doubted she had enough space to act as a 'life boat' for them all, and that was before he thought about the problems of keeping everyone fed until he could find a suitable planet…  
  
"Doctor Baltar," he said, looking critically at the former scientist as he walked into the cell, "can I just ask why you did this?"  
  
"What?" Baltar asked, looking at the Doctor with a smile. "Are you admitting that you don't understand something?"  
  
"Only an idiot ever thinks that he knows everything," the Doctor countered firmly, enjoying the brief moment when Baltar's smirk faltered before the Time Lord continued. "And we both know I'm talking about that book you wrote."  
  
"Oh, so someone _did_ read it," Baltar smiled. "Good to know my appeal to the common man is getting out-"  
  
"I glanced over it," the Doctor interjected. "And frankly, I've read better."  
  
"Such as?"  
  
 _The problem with being this far in the past is that I can't name-drop anybody he'd find significant_ …  
  
"To be blunt," the Doctor continued, deciding to focus on the practical details rather than make any comparisons Baltar wouldn't understand, "putting aside the fact that I find it more likely that you're trying to present yourself as a political prisoner so that everyone forgets that you're the main reason so many people in this fleet spent months on New Caprica under Cylon rule, I thought that your content was excessively bleak."  
  
"Bleak?"  
  
"Bleak," the Doctor nodded. "Everything you said about how the people must be feared if they won't be heard is a very negative way to look at politics and society, and that's before we get into all that material about the 'ruling class' of Roslin and the Adamas-"  
  
"Feel free to sprout anything if you just want to disagree with the idea that your supporters-" the former president began.  
  
"I disagree with your basic concept," the Doctor clarified. "To be frank, putting aside the fact that you were never interested in politics before the attacks and don't really have the background to make this kind of criticism, if you had any real interest in effecting change, you had the better part of a year to do anything about that when you were President, and from what I hear you were more concerned with your own comforts. As it currently stands, when I look at your book with past precedent in mind… personally, you just come across as whining about the fact that you're not in charge by pointing out how everyone else is flawed."  
  
"And you don't agree?" Baltar asked. "We have been here for three years, and nothing has changed despite the fact that we had an actual election that Miss Roslin _lost_ -"  
  
"I won't deny that you made some interesting points, but putting aside the fact that _everyone_ makes mistakes, your text needed to consider the broader issues instead of just criticising everyone," the Doctor countered, folding his arms as he studied the scientist. "For one thing, if you truly believe that this fleet is in a position where the Adamas and Roslins are going to develop a royalty status, firstly, I'd like to ask who you think could genuinely do better at keeping this fleet alive than what they're doing right now, and secondly, would you prefer to be in this fleet long enough for that to be an issue or find somewhere to settle down that actually works as a long-term habitat that lets you explore alternatives?"  
  
Baltar simply stared at the Doctor in silence, but the Doctor liked to think that Baltar's lack of response showed that the other man was thinking about his point.  
  
"And on that topic," the Time Lord added, "did you ever even consider that what you were writing about could lead to your death?"  
  
"Because the Adamas won't like it-?" Baltar began, seemingly regaining his confidence.  
  
"Because if we end up being caught by a Cylon fleet in this state, we can't get away because everyone's so caught up in trying to improve the situation you've thrown in their faces that the ships are damaged," the Doctor clarified. "Were you even aware that you've caused a strike in the ship that provides fuel to most of this fleet, or did you just want to stir up a hornet's nest?"  
  
"What?" Baltar asked, looking at the Doctor with a trace of apprehension that confirmed the Time Lord's theory.  
  
The Doctor knew that people often accused him of being arrogant, particularly in his sixth incarnation, but he liked to think that even he had never been so arrogant that he missed the wider implications of his words when talking to those he met in his travels (He would freely admit that some of him were better with people than others, but that was a different kind of ignorance).  
  
"And that proves my point," he nodded at Baltar, allowing himself a brief smile at this confirmation of his theory. "You inspired trouble in the fleet for no other reason than to make a name for yourself, regardless of the fact that doing so put yourself in danger as much as everyone else, because your first thought concerns how to make yourself a public figure rather than to help people even if they won't know it's you."  
  
"I have helped-!"  
  
"I never said you hadn't helped; you just haven't helped for the sake of it," the Doctor clarified. "Right now, if you were legitimately interested in making social reform, I'd be one of your first supporters, but I think we both know that you're anything but the man for the job. In the time that I've been working with the admiral and the president, I have come to the conclusion that they are good people dealing with an impossibly difficult situation, whereas you are one of the most self-centred and egotistical people I have ever met, believing that you deserve special treatment because you're you, and the only reason you're not as dangerous as some of the people I've known who had those same issues is that you're not as smart as you think you are."  
  
"And you believe you're smarter?"  
  
"I could hardly be more stupid," the Doctor countered. "I've known revolutionaries who take on the role for various reasons, and you are not a revolutionary; you're just a man complaining about the fact that he isn't the biggest man on the metaphorical campus any more because it's the only way people will see you."  
  
"Everything in that book happens to be true-"  
  
"And your confession about your farming background is touching, but overcoming harsh backgrounds is only commendable if you do it for the right reasons," the Doctor countered. "I mean, I was a lord and heir to my family estates before I became a doctor but I don't bring up my title to get my own way; I'm only even doing it now to make a point."  
  
"What point?" Baltar asked, looking curiously at the Doctor despite himself.  
  
"That my family were content to sit around on their estate and be respected for their past deeds, while I chose to get out and do something rather than sit around and stay somewhere out of the way," the Doctor finished (He would have gone into more detail, but quite frankly he wouldn't have trusted Baltar with his coat, much less the truth about his origin).  
  
"And thank you for affirming my point," Baltar smiled. "In the end, whatever you say about what you're doing now, all the aristocracy wants is for the working class to feel looked after while they scrabble for table scraps-"  
  
"Which would be far more meaningful if you hadn't made that kind of approach the cornerstone or your presidential campaign…" the Doctor began, before his eyes narrowed curiously. "And what are you?"  
  
"What am-?" Baltar began.  
  
"Not you; _her_ ," the Doctor said, indicating the extremely fair-haired woman in a tight black dress who'd suddenly appeared in the cell.  
  
" _What_?" Baltar said, his original laconic manner forgotten as he looked incredulously at the Doctor. "You- you can _see_ her?"  
  
"You are aware of me?" the woman said, recognisable as the Cylon the Colonials had identified as the sixth model as she turned to look at the Doctor.  
  
"Oh, I see you well enough; I just don't _know_ you yet…" the Doctor said, shaking his head as he studied the new arrival. "Would you care to explain where you fit into this?"  
  
"She… she said she was an angel-" Baltar began.  
  
"And I'm sure you were very grateful for that proof that you're important, but I would prefer to hear the truth right now," the Doctor said, his attention focused on the woman who was now looking at him with a discomfort that Baltar clearly wasn't used to seeing from this stranger. "I will ask again; who are you?"  
  
"…I am the Azure Guardian," the woman said, looking at the Doctor in a quizzical manner.


	14. The Guardians of the Fleet

"The… Azure Guardian?" Baltar repeated, looking at the woman he'd come to consider his personal guide in confusion as she looked at the Doctor. "What does that mean?"

"It means," the Doctor said, still studying the strange woman intently, "that this woman is intended to represent the very concept of balance and equilibrium in the universe as a whole, and ensure that things come to pass in a manner that justifies her stability… which leaves me wondering what she's doing talking to you of all people."

"She said that I… had a destiny…" Baltar began.

"Which you naturally lapped up, being the egomaniac that you are," the Doctor cut the former president off, his gaze fixed on the woman identified as the Azure Guardian. "You know who I am, I presume?"

"Fully," the woman smiled at him. "My compatriots speak of you a great deal."

"I suspected as much," the Doctor said grimly. "Can we talk about this somewhere more… private?"

"Of course," the woman said, reaching out to tap Baltar on the head, sending him to the ground unconscious, before she took the Doctor's arm. In a moment, the Doctor found himself standing in his room, Fitz and Compassion looking at him in shock.

"What the-?" Fitz began.

"Who is _that_?" Compassion asked, glaring at the Azure Guardian. "She looks like that sixth Cylon, but…"

"How can you-?"

" _That_ is not important," the Doctor said, moving to stand between the Azure Guardian and his companion with a firm glare. "What _is_ important is that you've been talking to Baltar, and I have reason to believe that there is more going on than you just dropping in on him recently, so you _will_ make yourself visible to Fitz and then I want to know what you're trying to accomplish and how it fits in with your status."

"Who are you talk-?" Fitz began, before jumping in surprise as the woman obviously became visible to him. "Who the _Hell_ is that?"

"She's the Azure Guardian of Equilibrium," the Doctor explained.

"The what what of what?"

"The Guardians are six entities that serve as the personifications of some of the fundamental forces of the universe," the Doctor explained, gaze still fixed on the woman before him. "I've encountered the Black and White Guardians of Chaos and Order on a few occasions a few lives ago, and the Crystal Guardian of Dreams was one of the first opponents I ever faced, but I had only heard of the other three before now…"

"And we would have preferred that it remain that way," the woman said. "No offence intended, Doctor, but you can be a very… volatile element in any situation."

"None taken," the Doctor replied coolly, before his eyes narrowed in a pointed stare. "And on that topic, can you clarify what you're actually doing here? How does any of this achieve any kind of 'balance'?"

"It's not just me, Doctor," the woman said. "The Gold Guardian is also involved in these events."

"Gold?"

"The Guardian of Life," the Doctor answered for Fitz before turning back to the woman. "And that doesn't answer my main question; what does any of this have to do with the universal balance?"

"My own purpose is served by bringing humanity's population at this time down to a more manageable level and relocating them to fulfil their future destiny at a more suitable time," the woman said. "The Gold Guardian's purpose is served by doing his best to limit further death after the initial attack on the Twelve Colonies-"

"And I can assume that he's spending his time talking to one of the Cylons?"

"Correct," the woman replied. "The Gold Guardian appears to a key Cylon leader, and through her, he advises the Cylons to consider other methods of…"

"He encourages them to feel bad about what they did, I assume?" the Doctor asked with a pointed glare. "A laudable goal in principle, but I would have thought that he would better serve his purpose by preventing all that destruction in the first place…"

"History has rules that even we must adhere to, Doctor," the Guardian said firmly. "It was calculated that the current survivors are at a tolerable number for Earth's future role to be sustainable-"

"Hold on; if this other Guardian's talking to the Cylons, does that mean this… woman was talking to someone in the Fleet?" Fitz asked, looking uncertainly between the Doctor and the woman.

"She's been talking to Doctor Baltar," the Doctor clarified, before focusing back on the woman. "Which raises another question; why him? I appreciate that this population took a knock when the colonies were destroyed, but there are still around forty thousand people left in this fleet; if you had to talk to anybody, why focus on an egomaniac scientist who isn't as smart as he thinks he is?"

Even as he stared at the woman waiting for a response, the Doctor tilted his head back in understanding. "Of _course_ … he was smart and significant enough to be sure that everyone would listen to him when you had something meaningful for him to say, but at the same time was personally stupid enough that he wouldn't question anything you asked him to do so long as you made him feel important?"

"As fair an assessment as any, Doctor," the woman nodded at him with a grim smile.

"And the Guardian of Life talks with the Cylons to stop anyone else dying off in this grand experiment?"

"Precisely," the woman smiled. "Our contact at that end was fundamentally more… reasonable; where I have to encourage Doctor Baltar to play along by focusing on the risks he faces, all my associate has to do is convince his contact to encourage leniency against the humans so that numbers don't fall further than we can control-"

"Further than you can control?" the Doctor repeated, his eyes narrowing with a cold glare. "Are you even aware that you are talking about human _lives_ here?"

"And Cylon lives-"

"They can resurrect; nobody's actually _died_ on their side of this mess yet!" Fitz cut in, glaring at the woman. "What the hell are you doing that makes it worth killing all these people?"

"Ensuring your future, Fitz Kriener," the woman smiled.

"What?" Fitz looked at her incredulously, before his expression shifted to uncertain confusion. "This is all because of… we're talking about Earth, right?"

"Indeed," the Azure Guardian nodded. "Humanity's history on Earth is of great benefit to the universe; allowing humanity to spread from the Colonies would put that position at risk."

"You're doing all this to get humanity to Earth?" the Doctor asked, looking at the woman in surprise. "This is a very… I appreciate that you can't act directly in this universe if your black and white compatriots set a precedent, but this is a very convoluted way to go about that, surely?"

"It works," the woman smiled.

"But killing off twelve colonies' worth of people because they were born in the wrong solar system?" Compassion asked.

"It's not just that," the Doctor noted grimly. "A humanity born of the twelve colonies of Kobol spreading out into the wider universe at this time would upset the balance of the wider universe in more ways than one, correct?"

"Upset the balance?" Fitz asked.

"We _are_ fairly far in the past at this point, Fitz," the Doctor smiled solemnly over at his friend. "The Colonials might be fairly primitive by the standards of some of the societies we've encountered in our travels, but at this point in the universe's history, with so few other space-faring races, they could be a significant but dangerous force in the wider universe if they decided to… turn their attention to others?"

"That's a bit cynical of you, isn't it, Doctor?" Compassion asked.

"I'm fond of humanity, Compassion; that doesn't mean I'm blind to their faults."

"So… you Guardians did this to stop the human race becoming too big too quickly?"

"A fair enough assessment of our actions," the Azure Guardian nodded at Fitz. "Balance must be maintained."

" _Balance_ …" the Doctor said, shaking his head in frustration before he sighed and stared at the Guardian. "I appreciate that I cannot exactly _stop_ you doing anything that you want to do at this point, and I obviously cannot have any impact on what you have done so far, but if you could possibly limit your future manipulation of Baltar and the Cylons and let the Colonials handle their _own_ problems from here on in, that would be… appreciated."

"And why should we do that?"

"Because I'm here to get this fleet to Earth."

"Even when you don't know-?"

"I don't know where Earth is in relation to our present location _now_ ," the Doctor corrected her. "However, I _can_ be sure that I'll get them to safety without playing with their minds any more than is absolutely necessary, and I certainly won't do it using your methods."

"You think you can do this?"

"If you know anything about me, you'll know that I take questions of that nature as a challenge," the Doctor countered. "In any case, can I assume Baltar won't remember our little moment down there?"

"He won't tell anyone about it, certainly," the woman smiled, before she vanished once again, leaving the Doctor and his companions looking uncertainly at each other.

"So… basically, we just told one of a couple of gods not to get further involved in things in this fleet because we're going to get these guys to Earth on their own?" Fitz asked uncertainly. "Is that _really_ a good idea?"

"These people are down to less than forty thousand people from a population that once spanned twelve worlds; I hardly think we can do any worse than the Guardians, especially if we assume they were responsible for such developments as our last little stand-off above the algae planet," the Doctor said bluntly. "The Guardians might be powerful, but they aren't _meant_ to do anything on their own; the problem with entities operating on such a high level is that, when they get the chance to act on this level, even the better ones end up losing any real sight of the implications of their actions on this level of existence."

"Like… if we were trying to direct ants?"

"The analogy is unfair, but you're on the right lines, certainly," the Doctor nodded. "In any case, knowing that the Guardians are involved changes a few things, but hopefully Baltar should be less involved to take any more drastic action if his associate agrees to leave him alone."

"You think she will?"

"If you or I can keep an eye on his cell we can make sure of it, anyway," the Doctor clarified. "The Guardians might be able to hide from human perception, but you and I operate on… well, a different level than the average person, anyway."

"Advantages to being a higher dimensional entity, I suppose," Compassion mused. "What about the current social shift inspired by that book of his?"

"I'll need to talk with Bill and Laura about that; hopefully, they should have _something_ to offer by now…"

* * *

"Rotating shifts on various ships?" the Doctor noted, looking at Roslin and Adama with a smile. "Interesting system."  
  
"I'm not going to lie and say we didn't have some… teething troubles… getting to this point, but we're not going to ignore valid concerns once they're seriously brought to our attention just because we don't like the source, Doctor," Roslin noted, looking at him with a slight smile. "Doctor Baltar might be a complete frak-up, but we aren't going to solve the problems he brought up by pretending they don't exist; contrary to what he claims, we don't want to build a hierarchy where jobs are inherited with no opportunity for expansion."  
  
"And I congratulate you for that decision," the Doctor smiled at the president before his smile faltered. "I just wish it hadn't had to reach this point before we did something about it…"  
  
"This whole situation's a frak-up, Doctor," Adama noted. "We were hardly prepared to be left in this position when the Cylons attacked, and since then we've been more caught up in the bigger priorities of just surviving the Cylon attacks; these last few months are probably the longest period we've had without encountering Cylon ships when we didn't have a planet to go to for a break."  
  
"Ah, cabin fever; always a problem, regardless of the scale of the cabin you have to work with," the Doctor smiled. "Still, I give you credit for trying to take action when the problem was brought to your attention; too many people would have just kept on using the extreme situation to justify extreme measures."  
  
"Contrary to what Tom Zarek would like to convince people, I am a full supporter of the democratic process, Doctor," the president said firmly. "My assumption of the post was… unconventional, certainly, but…"  
  
"Say no more; as the man who was forced into the position twice, I can sympathise," the Doctor smiled.  
  
"You were a president?" Roslin looked at him in surprise.  
  
"It was given to me back on my home world after I exposed the previous candidates as corrupt; I never set out to aspire to the role myself, and got out of the position as soon as I could," the Doctor said firmly. "The point is that I understand better than most the temptations and the challenges of power, as well as the difference between taking it when you have to and holding it when you shouldn't, but I also appreciate how people can assume the position when circumstances require it without seeking it themselves, and from what I've seen, you've done as well as anyone I can imagine would when dealing with this situation."  
  
"If only we all had that luxury," Roslin said, smiling sympathetically at him before her expression became more solemn. "If only I could be sure that this was the last we were going to hear of Doctor Baltar's efforts to build himself up…"  
  
"Oh," the Doctor smiled, "I have a feeling that Doctor Baltar is going to be a _bit_ quieter in the future…"  
  
The man might have written some interesting books even before he became the new 'pawn' of the Azure Guardian, but the Doctor had a feeling that he'd start to slow down once he lost the Guardian's influence. The scientist had an ego on the level of Davros and the Master, but he was handicapped by the fact that he wasn't as smart as he thought he was, even if he was still more knowledgeable than some of the people around him; he understood facts easily enough, but his ability to put them into practise for any reason other than to save his own life on his own was very limited.  
  
Baltar hadn't shown an interest in politics before, so the Doctor had to assume that most of his political aspirations since the destruction of the Colonies had been prompted by the Azure Guardian; assuming that she and the Gold Guardian agreed with his ultimatum, the only question now was what Baltar would do without his 'guiding angel', particularly with his trial coming up in a few weeks…

* * *

_You believe he can do it?_   
  
_The Time Lord has shown a remarkable aptitude for outmanoeuvring higher powers in the past… to say nothing of his own skills in situations such as these._   
  
_But to abandon them all after this long…_   
  
_He made one clear point; at this stage, leaving them alone may be the best solution to avoid exacerbating the situation._   
  
_But his methods often lead to more death before things are resolved; how long do we give him to get the job done?_   
  
_I said that we should let him handle the fleets the way he wishes; that does not mean that we should do nothing to ensure that he receives some key insight on where to go next…_

* * *

"It's… intriguing, really."  
  
"What is?" the Doctor looked curiously at Compassion, his three companions sitting around their room.  
  
"Seeing how far the president will go because… well, because she wants to," Compassion explained. "I mean, she might have only started it because Baltar's book brought the issues to her attention, but at the same time, so many people would have been willing to simply leave it all alone and pass the blame on to someone else."  
  
"That's what I like about humanity," the Doctor smiled at Compassion. "They might make mistakes as a whole, but get the right individuals in the right place at the right time, and they can surprise you."  
  
"Even if you don't like how they do it?"  
  
"Sometimes especially because you don't like how they do it," the Doctor nodded at Fitz. "This is about the military control issue, I take it?"  
  
"Just… kind of surprised you were so laid-back about that whole mess," his friend noted. "I get that they need their fighters, but you always made it clear that you don't like soldiers-"  
  
"Which is why I had to stay out of this issue," the Doctor clarified. "The deck crews certainly need better care taken in their situation, but at the same time the fleet needs to know that their equipment will be properly maintained. After all, it's not like these people can just request reassignment to another ship if they don't like the workload; all they have is _Galactica_ and the rest of the fleet, so they need to learn to overcome their differences on their own."  
  
"Let humanity make its own mistakes?" Compassion asked. "A dangerous time to attempt something like that, surely?"  
  
"Forcing your view on a situation is never going to improve it," the Doctor replied solemnly, before glancing over at Fitz. "And speaking of views on the situations, what's troubling you?"  
  
"It's just…" Fitz sighed. "I mean, I get that this Baltar guy's an egotistical prick, but he went to all that effort to hide his past… didn't I do the same?"  
  
"Fitz Fortune was an alias you used to escape violent prejudice against your father's name that you _knew_ you'd have to deal with after the war," the Doctor said firmly. "Gaius Baltar hid everything about his background because he was ashamed of it and thought other people would think less of him as a result; the reasoning is the same superficially, but the fine details are completely different."  
  
"…Thanks," Fitz smiled at the Doctor.  
  
"Right," the Doctor nodded at Fitz, before he stood up and clapped his hands together with a casual smile. "Well then, shall we focus on where this fleet is going to go next?"


	15. The Destiny of Kara Thrace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope this chapter works; it was surprisingly tricky to get it right, but I knew from the start that I wanted to change what Kara went through in canon

The trouble with being stuck in a warship that was on an active war footing, albeit one of the most unconventional war footings the Doctor had ever encountered in all his lives, was that there was only so much time he could spend with each individual soldier even if he wanted to. Unlike with UNIT, where his status as an alien had been essentially an open secret among the staff, nobody outside the senior staff had any reason to think of him as anything more than a brilliant scientist with an eccentric dress sense who'd remained under the radar for the first part of this journey, and he couldn't spend too much time with those members of the crew who knew the truth without attracting too much attention. As it currently stood, he was developing a reputation as a man to talk to when dealing with a various technical problems, but so far he'd managed to avoid attracting too many questions about his past.

_It's a complicated balance; do enough to get these people to safety, but not so much that I expose what I am before they're ready to learn it_.

He wasn't sure if these people would have made it to Earth or not without his involvement, but with the discovery that the Azure and Gold Guardians had been involved in this mess, he was having to re-evaluate the scale of what he was dealing with. He at least had some hope that their key goal had been to save lives rather than just destroy everything, so he knew that he wasn't setting himself an impossible task, but there was a lot of space to cross between here and wherever Earth was.

_The jump-drive gives me options if I can identify the right coordinates, particularly if I've correctly estimated its limitations, but that doesn't help if I don't know where I am_ now _…_

"…Doctor?"

"Yes?" the Doctor asked, breaking out of his train of thought and turning to look at Kara Thrace, who was looking particularly fatigued even given the strained circumstances they were dealing with at the moment. "Can I help you?"

"I… I don't know," Kara said, shaking her head awkwardly. "I just… things lately…"

"Bad dreams?" the Doctor looked curiously at the young woman.

"That's not the word for it," Kara replied, the two sitting in silence for a moment before she spoke again. "I just… ever since we left that algae planet, I've…"

"Trouble sleeping?"

"How do you even do that?"

"I've been around for a long time, Captain Thrace; I know what makes people tick and when they're not at their best," the Doctor explained. "What is it; just generally restless, or is there a specific problem?"

"Bad dreams," Kara said grimly, after studying him thoughtfully for a moment. "Helo's suggested a psychiatrist or an oracle, but I'm not sure…"

"What are they?" the Doctor asked, looking curiously at Kara. "The dreams, I mean?"

"You asking for personal or professional reasons?"

"Semi-professional; consider me a gifted amateur."

"You qualified for this?"

"I've seen a great deal in my life," the Doctor smiled at Kara. "If I'm not officially qualified through some form of degree, I'm certainly _un_ officially qualified due to experience; care to join me in my office?"

His words might be an exaggeration of his skills, but with two Guardians already involved in this, the Doctor would be very surprised if whatever was troubling Kara wasn't connected to their wider plan. As Kara walked into his unofficial lab, she glanced sceptically around at the various equipment the Doctor had assembled over his time in the fleet, ranging from a couple of computers scanning the constantly updating stellar maps of the area to the remnants of Baltar's chemistry equipment.

"Interesting mix," she noted.

"I get by," the Doctor shrugged, moving to sit at the desk in the middle of the room, indicating a chair on the other side. "Sit down, please."

"OK…" Kara said, looking uncertainly at the man in the velvet jacket even as she followed his cue. "So… how's this going to work? You listen while I just… talk it out?"

"Let's keep it simple to start with, certainly," the Doctor nodded at the young woman. "What can you tell me about the dreams?"

"Mostly… about my mother."

"Your mother?"

"Mostly… about how I didn't measure up," Kara sighed. "I mean, there's also some frak about Leoben telling me that I have a destiny, but-"

"Let's… leave that issue alone for the moment," the Doctor said, holding up a hand as he looked reassuringly at the viper pilot. "What about your mother?"

"It's… well, it's about our last meeting," Kara said, after a moment's solemn silence as she stared at her hands. "She'd always had this fixation with me being special, but in our last talk after I graduated officer training, she accused me of being a quitter because I didn't work on my personal issues."

"You mean your rebellious streak?"

"Graduated sixteenth in my class despite my skills in the cockpit because of it," Kara shrugged. "I was in a class of over a hundred cadets, and as far as she was concerned, I should have been first…"

"There was something else to it, wasn't there?"

"She… died after that last talk," Kara admitted. "I'd found out she had cancer, and all she could do was criticise me for trying to show sympathy and tell me that I should find someone else to motivate me because I wouldn't have her to do it any more…"

"Parents," the Doctor smiled sympathetically at Kara. "They're never easy, and it's worse when they have expectations of you."

"Been there?"

"Of a sort," the Doctor shrugged; he didn't often share this much information about his own background, but Kara seemed so down and uncertain of herself right now that it seemed appropriate to do so. "The head of my family always believed that I was destined to become president of my people, but I never had any real interest in politics; I got my doctorate easily enough, but I only passed my final qualifying exams to become a member of my peoples' elite with the bare minimum needed to satisfy his desires for me."

"Concede to parental demands without giving into them completely, huh?" Kara smiled at him. "Always a pleasure to meet a fellow rebel."

"We make life interesting," the Doctor grinned, before he looked more solemnly at her. "The point is, no parent should have the right to make demands of their children just because they believe they know what we should do with our lives. You did the best you could, and that should be enough; you can't keep lashing out at others because you're still struggling with your mother's expectations."

"Think that's where she comes into it?"

"As good an explanation as any," the Doctor nodded (privately, he suspected that something was using the image of Kara's mother as a useful means of communicating with her right now, but he doubted she was ready to hear something like that).

"And… what about Leoben?" Kara asked, sounding surprisingly timid as she looked at the Doctor.

"Leoben? That's… Cylon model Number Two, correct?"

"He was in the dream too; said all this stuff about how I'm afraid of diving into the unknown and the edge, but… there's also mom…"

"Fear of the unknown is nothing to be ashamed of. I may like to think of myself as an explorer, but there are some places where I recognise that I shouldn't probe too far too quickly. Death is what gives our lives meaning, but you shouldn't go looking for it either…"

He paused and looked at her with a more thoughtful expression for a moment, before he nodded in resolution. "I think we need to take a closer look at this."

"Closer look?" Kara repeated uncertainly. "We're talking about my head issues, Doc-"

"Firstly, don't call me 'Doc'," the Doctor corrected Kara, holding up a firm finger before he gave her a warmer smile as he raised his hands so that they were on either side of Kara's head. "And secondly, I have other methods; if you just sit where you are, I'll do the rest."

"What?" Kara blinked.

"It's a… technique from back home," the Doctor explained; he appreciated that the senior staff knew that he wasn't quite human and trusted him nevertheless, but he didn't want to advertise some of his more subtle abilities in case they started worrying about what else he could do. "Just sit down in front of me, relax yourself, and I'll… see what I can do."

"Hypnosis?"

"Something like that," the Doctor shrugged, not wanting to explain this in greater depth. "I won't do anything… invasive, I can assure you; I just have a few theories I want to test, and it's best if you're… not fully conscious of them at the time."

"You're not going to do anything… weird, right?" Kara asked, the teasing tone in her voice at odds with the fear that the Doctor could only see because he was looking her directly in the eyes.

"I will do _nothing_ to you, Kara Thrace, beyond find your problem and help your subconscious reach a state where it can be accepted," the Time Lord replied solemnly, hoping that his current incarnation's natural sincerity would make it easier for her to accept him at his word despite the lack of detail he could share with her. "Just relax… open your mind… and listen to my words…"

As Kara's mind began to relax under his words, the Doctor tentatively stretched out his mental senses, carefully feeling his way around the young woman's psyche, greatly appreciating the easier nature of this 'intrusion' compared to his last couple of attempts; the Beast had been relatively peaceful once he found the right dimensional phase to talk to them on, but that experience with the Waro had been very complicated…

He wasn't sure what he was expecting to find at first, but he took care to probe his way through the Viper pilot's memories without drawing too much attention to his presence. He tried to skim over the finer details of her past, but he still winced when he felt her mother slam a door on Kara's fingers. Behind all of Kara's tough attitude and incredible flying skills was a damaged woman whose mother had made her suffer for the sake of some nebulous future destiny that nobody was sure about, and behind that, there was something… something reaching out to her with the image of Leoben Conroy… something that was reaching for her… something that would draw her to them and make her their agent… something that…

_**You**_ , the Doctor said, reaching above and around Kara's mind to address the source of this signal directly. _I thought we agreed you wouldn't do this kind of thing any more?_

_There is no harm in providing some… assistance, surely?_

_Providing the right person with assistance and insight into a specific crisis is one thing; this would involve taking someone away from her entire_ life _just to serve your own purpose._

_Kara Thrace has a destiny-_

_Nobody has a single destiny; it's one of the many things that inspired me to travel in the first place. Kara Thrace is a human being with a right to live her life without you interfering with it just because it's easier that way. If you have a clear message for her, give it to me and leave it at that; she deserves to be more than a pawn in whatever games you're playing._

_You make many presumptions about your importance in the grand scheme of things, Doctor_.

_I will not apologise for assuming that lives matter; Kara Thrace has been through too much to be discarded in such a manner._

_We assured her that she would be safe-_

_Her safety isn't what concerns me right now; she would still be deprived of her family and friends for nothing more than to help you pursue your own agenda. Tell me what you have to say to her, and then leave her in peace_.

There was a brief silence over the telepathic connection, and then the Doctor felt a strange sensation as information was 'imprinted' into his brain, providing him with a complex sequence of galactic coordinates.

_I assume this is based on a galactic positioning system that_ I _would recognise rather than the Colonials_?

_It is._

_I see… I'll need to make sure how far we have to go between here and there, of course, but-_

_We would caution patience._

_I would take that personally, but considering the way things stand, I will assume you don't wish to anger me further at this time, so why should I wait?_

_You may wish to examine the destination yourself rather than dive in to provide them with these coordinates immediately. What you will discover there will give you some answers about the wider picture, but only once you are approached by the Four of Five_.

_What_?

The Doctor lost the telepathic connection before he could try and probe it for any further answers, but at least he felt like he'd accomplished something with this particular effort. Releasing his fingers from Kara's head, the Time Lord smiled as the young pilot shook her head, looking at him in confusion.

"Uh… what just happened?" she asked uncertainly.

"We… had a talk," the Doctor shrugged.

"A talk?"

"You don't remember most of it because of the hypnosis; I had to put you under to ensure that I reached the part of your mind that was most troubled and essentially help you accept it on a subconscious as well as a conscious level," the Doctor explained, hoping that she wouldn't probe the issue any further than what he was willing to share. "I would recommend that you take a little time off to be sure you've got your head back together, but other than that, I think you'll be all right."

"Right…" Kara said, looking uncertainly at him for a moment before smiling uncertainly. "Th… thanks?"

"Give it a day or two to be sure it stuck, and then thank me," the Doctor told her. "It's a bit too early to say anything else for certain, but… I think what I did should help."

For a moment, the Time Lord considered telling Kara more about what he'd discovered, but swiftly decided against it. Religion was still an area of the Colonials' lives he'd tried not to approach in detail so far, and he didn't want to risk rocking that particular boat by discussing higher powers influencing their journey when even he didn't know the full story yet.

_And who were that 'Four of Five' they mentioned_?

He had an idea or two, but it was still frustrating to have to form a new evaluation of a situation that he was still struggling to understand; there was only so much he could do right now…

_Maybe this is one time I should have adhered to official policy and stayed out of things_.


	16. Trial Preparations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope this chapter works; considering that a key catalyst for events around this time was Kara being dead (or whatever happened to her), it's surprisingly harder to work out how to tweak events without causing too great a shift at this time (although I can assure you that bigger changes are planned once we get to Season Four).

"The Four of Five?" Fitz looked at the Doctor in confusion. "What's that about?"

"I'm still working that out myself, actually," the Doctor replied. "The obvious assumption is that it relates to those 'Final Five' Cylons that even the seven we know of don't know about, but that doesn't explain why I should only expect _four_ of them to show themselves, or why they'd do it now rather than earlier."

"Maybe they're the missing link in those questions you brought up earlier?" Compassion asked.

"Missing link?" Fitz repeated, before snapping his fingers in recollection. "Oh yeah; all that stuff you said about the Cylons' design not making any sense?"

"It's a possibility," the Doctor nodded at his friend. "We still don't know why whoever designed the Cylons apparently decided to change tactics like that; maybe the Final Five aren't 'final' in the sense that they were the last ones made, but in the sense that they're somehow distinct from the other seven? Actually, if they were built earlier, that might even explain why Sharon and the others don't know anything about them; whoever designed the seven might have been able to erase the data that related to the identity of the Final Five from the core programming even if they couldn't erase the knowledge of their existence…"

"Why do that?" Compassion asked. "Wouldn't it have made more sense to erase all knowledge of the Final Five completely?"

"When something's lost, it can be reconstructed based on the gap it leaves behind if the subject is intelligent enough," the Doctor clarified. "Erasing the Five completely could have been problematic, as whoever did it might have had doubts about their ability to program the other Cylons to that extent, but erasing the data about who they are while leaving the knowledge that they existed and shouldn't be discussed could be enough."

"Talking of problematic situations," Fitz noted, looking over at the Doctor, "what do you think about all this stuff we've been hearing about Baltar's trial?"

"I'm trying to stay out of that, really."

"Really?" Compassion noted. "After everything that man's done-"

"Everything he's _apparently_ done," the Doctor corrected. "I don't deny that the evidence strongly favours the idea that he's guilty of potential Cylon collaboration, but nobody's definitively seen him doing anything with any known Cylon agents before the colonies were destroyed. Even if I doubt that I'm the only one who didn't approve of what he did when he was president of New Caprica, there could be an argument that he only worked with the Cylons because he might have been able to mitigate the potential damage they might have done if they'd just taken over completely."

"Based on what we've heard, that hardly seems like a good reason," Compassion noted. "Quite frankly, it seems as though he basically capitulated as soon as the Cylons showed up and let them do whatever they wanted to any humans who objected to the Cylons' presence."

"I never said _I_ thought it was a good reason; I'm just noting what his defence counsel might argue," the Doctor clarified. "As I said, this whole situation is complicated, but it's fundamentally an internal matter for these people, and that's before I factor in the importance of them defining their own legal system in the aftermath of a major catastrophe on this scale."

"They… oh, right; that whole thing about each colony having their own rules, right?" Fitz asked. "They haven't sorted that out yet?"

"Human nature, Fitz; how often do people in a crisis respond pre-emptively to a problem that might come up?" Compassion pointed out. "You always just react to everything; you never anticipate a threat or a complication on this scale until you're already facing it."

"And, as there hasn't been any real need for a trial on this scale since the colonies were destroyed, they haven't worked out the issues of their old legal system yet," the Doctor concluded.

"They had issues?" Fitz asked. "I thought they had a unified government?"

"But each individual colony was basically expected to deal with criminal proceedings on their own planets with their own laws," the Doctor clarified.

"Which… doesn't really work now, for obvious reasons."

"Quite. Still, we have to give them credit for actually trying to sort out a trial, rather than just succumbing to peer pressure and throwing Baltar out the nearest airlock."

"And they're using a five-judge system that seems as impartial as they're going to get at this point," Compassion noted.

"Five-judge system?" Fitz asked. "I just heard there was something about them getting a new defence guy for Baltar after the last guy got blown up?"

"The issue of the judges had been sorted out earlier; they just need the lawyers for the key part of the case."

"Should we consider ourselves fortunate that these terrorists just want to ensure Gaius Baltar loses?" Compassion noted. "From what I've seen of human history back on Earth, some terrorists just don't care about the collateral damage so long as they make their point; there's been no record of these ones trying anything larger than what's necessary to damage the area where their target's going to be."

"Whether these are 'good' terrorists doesn't change the fact that capitulating to their demands at this time wouldn't set a good precedent," the Doctor noted. "I appreciate that this trial is making everything complicated, but at least the Colonials are allocating responsibility in an appropriate manner. From what I've heard, without naming names, some of the more religious colonies may have required Baltar to walk across fiery coals or something similar to prove whether he had been judged by the gods."

"Seriously?"

"Religion is _very_ important to these people, Fitz; don't let the fact that they created a massive space-fleet before the Cylons destroyed it make you think that they're not superstitious."

"Point," Fitz noted. "Guess we got lucky that not many people on this ship make that big a thing about religion and where we fit into it… which reminds me, how's Starbuck?"

"Chafing from my recommended 'quarantine', but she understands why I did it," the Doctor confirmed. "Until I'm sure that whatever was trying to get in touch with her isn't going to do it again, I'd prefer it if she didn't leave this ship in case it lures her in; anything powerful enough to do that to her isn't going to abandon its plans too quickly, no matter what argument I try to present."

"I can get the admiral accepting it, but how did she even sell it to everyone else?"

"The advantage of too many terrorist attacks; once I explained my fears to Bill, it wasn't that difficult to make it look like she got caught in the crossfire of the next attack and have Cottle order her grounded until he can be sure she's well," the Doctor smiled. "She protests, of course, but she doesn't _want_ to leave anyone here, which certainly helps her go along with it."

"The fact that we haven't been attacked for a while probably also helps with that one."

"Quite," the Doctor nodded with a grim expression as he reflected on the pilot's current situation. Starbuck's husband Anders had questioned why she was accepting being grounded when he'd heard stories about her trying to fly even after sustaining a damaged knee that kept her officially grounded for the next month, but as there was no reason for her to lie about staying off, he had eventually accepted the explanation even if he still seemed suspicious. "So long as she stays out of a Viper, I think we'll be all right where Kara's concerned, which gives us time to focus on the trial."

* * *

"You put your son in charge of the defence counsel's security?" the Doctor looked at Adama in surprise as he sat with Roslin in the admiral's quarters. "Not that I doubt Major Adama's abilities, but at this point, isn't that basically the most dangerous position in the entire fleet?"  
  
"Which is why I gave it to the member of this fleet I trust most," the admiral said solemnly.  
  
"Believe me, Doctor, we aren't comfortable with this situation any more than you are," Roslin noted. "After everything that man's done-"  
  
"I feel I should clarify my stance at this point, Madame President," the Doctor cut her off, holding up one hand. "I agree that the evidence against Baltar is compelling, but I've been in situations where the evidence against _me_ for having committed certain crimes was almost equally compelling, and it turned out that my friends and I were being framed to cover up other peoples' mistakes or just been a victim of very unfortunate timing and circumstances. I'm not saying that I think anyone here would fake evidence against Baltar if none existed, but I'm just pointing out that the case isn't that clear-cut."  
  
"Quite," Adama said, Roslin just staring silently at the Doctor from the other side. "In any case, the new lawyer, Romo Lampkin, may have freely admitted that he's only taking the case for the fame of it, but in the end he's the best qualified candidate for the role available and willing to take it on; we can hardly afford to complain about our choices."  
  
"I sympathise," the Doctor nodded, before shooting them a brief smile. "Of course, you might be helped by the fact that Baltar is… going to be losing himself, shall we say?"  
  
"In what way?" Roslin looked curiously at the Doctor.  
  
"Let's just say that I have reason to believe that Doctor Baltar is going to be losing his concentration when it comes to matters of his personal future," the Doctor smiled. "Your former president might consider himself to be smart, but he's only smart within a certain set of pre-established scenarios that are about to fail him if I'm correct in my understanding of his character."  
  
"Does this have anything to do with that last meeting you had with him during that strike?"  
  
"Among other things," the Doctor acknowledged. "As I said, Baltar's main flaw is that he's spent so long expecting that he'll be able to get away if anything goes wrong because he thinks he's smarter than everyone else."  
  
"Which is no longer true," Roslin smiled.  
  
"Well, I will admit I'm smarter than he is, but he's also made the classic mistake of confusing intellect with wisdom," the Doctor added. "He knew more in his chosen fields, but after so long being the expert in situations where he was invited to discuss that expertise, that view translates into a more straightforward inability to recognise that others can have useful insights or knowledge of a situation. Everything's worked out for him so far even when he was moved out of his original comfort zone, so he takes that as meaning that everything is _going_ to work out for him because he has some destiny or another."  
  
"Gods, that old excuse," Roslin said, shaking her head in frustration. "If he isn't trying to publish his book just to draw attention to himself, he's talking about how everything that's happened to him must be part of his views of 'destiny'."  
  
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you looking for Earth based on prophecies?"  
  
"Prophecies relating to the future of our entire people; I have accepted that evidence suggests that I am the dying leader of Pythia's scrolls, but I have not become fixated on the idea that they _must_ be all about me."  
  
"Aside from our old disagreement about the Arrow of Apollo."  
  
"Which was based around my interpretation of the prophecies as a whole leading me to make a unilateral decision; I would have been content not to make my reading of the prophecies public if circumstances had not demanded it."  
  
"Maybe we can avoid getting into that kind of discussion?" the Doctor put in, looking between the two fleet leaders with a slightly anxious smile; records of that point in the fleet's history were short, but he'd done enough historical research to know when people were trying to hide mistakes. "Let's just focus on the trial for the moment unless something Earth-related becomes a key concern, shall we?"  
  
The tone about that particular topic had been teasing so far, but he didn't want to risk it inspiring them to reflect on past bad feelings in the middle of this complicated trial; he knew from experience how easy it was to regress when faced with a difficult situation…

* * *

"There was a bomb on a raptor?" Adama said, looking incredulously between his son and Chief Tyrol as the two of them stood in front of the admiral's desk. "What were you even _doing_ there?"  
  
"Romo Lampkin requested files from Colonial One-"  
  
"And that required you to violate strict regulations?"  
  
"The last time I checked, we were intending to give Doctor Baltar a legitimate trial, which means ensuring that his defence has all the necessary tools available to carry that out," Lee countered firmly. "The bomb was discovered during the standard pre-flight check, disarmed before it could be a problem, and the deck staff are already working on tracking down where those components came from."  
  
"This was on my watch; I take full responsibility-" Tyrol began.  
  
"Security for the trial is not your responsibility, Chief," Adama cut the other man off. "You have your own duties; looking for bombs and other such attempts is Major Adama's responsibility, and this does not change the fact that Lampkin was on a no-fly list until we had identified the source of that last bomb."  
  
"I was doing the job," Lee said firmly.  
  
"Your job is to build a nest around that man and protect his ass," Adama said firmly.  
  
"Which I can't do the way you want me to do _and_ do my job at the same time," Lee countered. "The man might be an ass, but he made a point that if anyone wants to kill him they're going to find a way no matter what we do, so the best option is to do everything to give him the chance to carry out a fair trial."  
  
As Adama stared back at his son, he forced himself to remember what the Doctor had mentioned earlier; in a situation like this, the best thing any of them could do was focus on maintaining the law and show the people that they could make new lives and rules rather than keep trying to adhere to the way things were.  
  
Even with the Doctor's unexpected assistance, there was only so much any of them could do in such an impossible situation.  
  
 _I just wish that didn't mean watching my son become like my father_.  
  
He might have respected his father's ability to draw a line and stick to his principles, but when a man had worked with a crime syndicate, that was still a complicated issue however he tried to look at it…

* * *

"Actually, tracking the bomb was simple enough," the Doctor noted as he sat with Fitz and Compassion that evening.  
  
"Is that because these nuts wanted to talk about what they'd done once it was over, or because they just don't have the resources to hide anything?"  
  
"A bit of both," the Doctor nodded at the sentient TARDIS's words. "The only good thing about this mess we're in is that I was able to quell the idea that the Cylons were responsible for all this; the bombs were just too primitive for it."  
  
"And it couldn't be some kind of double-bluff?" Fitz asked. "Y'know, they plant something lower-tech so we assume they're not the problem?"  
  
"While I wouldn't put that past the Cylons, I doubt that they'd go to so much trouble to hide their presence while also using a more basic explosive than what they're capable of," the Doctor noted. "And believe me, I analysed everything that Chief Tyrol's team were able to salvage from the aftermath of the original explosion and the bomb that Major Adama discovered this time around; there was nothing in either bomb that I wouldn't expect from this fleet."  
  
"At least that's something, right?" Fitz noted with a brief smile.  
  
"To a point," the Doctor replied. "Dealing with an external threat is simple, but facing internal politics like this…"  
  
He didn't finish his sentence, but Fitz and Compassion had been with the Doctor long enough to understand his concerns.  
  
"There's no good solution to this mess, is there?" Compassion noted.  
  
"Not so far," the Doctor mused solemnly. "We're staying ahead of the Time Lords this way, but that can only last for so long if this fleet doesn't find somewhere safe, and that's assuming they can evade the Cylons for good."  
  
"And they're not the kind of robots you can feel comfortable blowing up."  
  
"Exactly," the Doctor acknowledged Compassion's point. "Sharon alone proves that the Cylons can be more than just machines trying to destroy humanity out of some pointless vendetta, but she was subject to such exceptional circumstances that I can't exactly use those to get any other Cylons to make the same choice…"  
  
"And there's the question of who's behind all those anomalies you've noticed," Fitz added. "I mean, if there is some big conspiracy behind all this, how are they going to react to us interrupting whatever plan they had going on?"  
  
"Even assuming that we're interrupting anything when we have no idea what plan is the current final outcome," Compassion noted. "All we know is that Cylon reproduction doesn't fit with their plan to destroy the human race, which could mean many things, and none of them are encouraging."  
  
The Doctor wished that he could offer a better answer to his companion's observation than what he had at the moment, which amounted to nothing.  
  
He hadn't felt this lost for a solution to a crisis since he was exiled during his third incarnation, and at least then he'd had some idea of what to do even if his knowledge of how to repair his ship had been blocked.


	17. Final Trial Assessment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, when I discuss the Doctor's past as President of Gallifrey here, classic series fans should know that I'm referring to the events of the Fifth Doctor audio 'Time in Office'; the Doctor was called back to Gallifrey to help with restructuring the political process of the High Council after they discovered that Borusa's manipulations had done so much damage to Gallifreyan politics that the system couldn't cope without him, and everyone currently in the Council wasn't capable of doing their jobs as Borusa had only promoted the weak, so the Doctor had to take on the role for a while to get Gallifrey back to normal.
> 
> I thought about making this chapter longer, but I decided that the actual trial merited a chapter all on its own, so this just deals with the last couple of details for the Doctor to confront before everything kicks off in earnest

"He's staying on Baltar's defence team."

"And?" the Doctor looked curiously at Kara, as the two sat opposite each other in the battlestar's makeshift bar.

"Lee Adama is _defending_ Gaius frakking Baltar," Kara repeated. "This is easily the dumbest thing he's ever done!"

"Because he believes in the right to legal counsel?"

"Because some people don't frakking _deserve_ it!"

"Oh, I'm not denying that," the Doctor nodded. "It just comes down to whether you believe you have the right to judge them yourself."

"And why not?" Kara asked.

"Because it's a slippery slope from deciding that you have the right to judge one evil person on your own and then expanding to a point where you believe that only you can make such judgements about anyone and to hell with what anyone else might think," the Doctor replied, his tone suddenly solemn. "A friend of mine once helped me remember that I stand for the underdog, which helped me make the decision to abandon the position I held at the time as president of my own planet."

"Hold on; you were the _president_ of your _planet_?" Kara looked at the Doctor incredulously, only just remembering to keep her voice low despite her shock; they weren't in the most public part of the ship, but it was still possible that some passing marine could hear them. "And you gave that up?"

"You've seen what Compassion is, Lieutenant Thrace; she's a particularly exceptional case, but if my people have the technology able to create even a non-sentient object that reflects what she is capable of, can you imagine what else my people could accomplish if they put their minds to it?" the Doctor replied solemnly. "If I had accepted a position of authority back on my home world, I freely admit that I would have been tempted to use that power to encourage my people to help others, but in the end, benevolent dictatorship is still dictatorship; I couldn't take on that kind of authority and still do what I do with a clear conscience."

"OK…" Kara said, looking uncertainly at him for a time before she continued. "OK, I can get that you didn't want to give yourself that kind of power, but what does that have to do with letting Doctor Frakwit get a trial?"

"Because society has to be trusted to make decisions on this scale, or we might as well have just stayed in the oceans and never moved on as a species," the Doctor explained (evolution hadn't quite been that simple on Gallifrey, but it was easier to give Kara this kind of example). "The question isn't whether or not Baltar deserves the trial, but whether you as a society can be trusted to deal with him in a legal manner; this trial is more about what it represents for your society as a whole, rather than being about Baltar in himself."

"And Lee getting involved in it?"

"From what I've heard, Major Adama's always had a fairly clear idea of what he wants society to be, even if- if I may be blunt- he's not always been the best about choosing his moment to make a stand for those principles. At the same time, this isn't about his timing; it comes down to the question of whether he's right to make a stand or not, which comes down to whether you believe that he thinks that he's doing the right thing."

"Even for an ass like Baltar?"

"Human beings are flawed creatures, Kara Thrace, but I've learned over my lives that their flaws are what make them exceptional," the Doctor grinned. "I've met the best and worst of men and women in my travels, and while I won't deny that there were a few people who were complete monsters or total saints, what I admire about you is that many of you try to do something about it."

"Even Baltar?"

"He needs a good kick before he can reach that level, but he's not at the stage where he can be classed as irredeemable so easily."

"Right…" Kara nodded, looking thoughtfully at the Time Lord before she nodded in grim resignation. "Can I at least hate the fact that you're making sense?"

"Of course," the Doctor nodded. "I understand why this has to be done; that doesn't mean I don't think Doctor Baltar is an idiot."

Unfortunately, while he was inclined to have faith in Lee Adama's desire to do the right thing, he still had to question some of the rumours he'd been hearing about what that lawyer got up to. Romo Lampkin's implied kleptomaniac tendencies were a comparatively harmless issue in a regular society, but in a world like this fleet, with so many limited resources, they could be far more problematic, even if he had to wonder how much of what Lampkin was doing was because he wanted to win his case…

* * *

"You're the new scientific advisor?"  
  
"And you're the new head of Gaius Baltar's defence," the Doctor replied, nonchalantly sitting back in his chair as he looked at Romo Lampkin. "Now that we've established our titles, can I help you with something?"  
  
"Satisfying my curiosity," Lampkin replied, removing his black glasses as he looked at the Doctor.  
  
"About what?" the Doctor inquired. "If it's regarding our current situation with the Cylons, I'm obviously forbidden from sharing that kind of information with the general population for security reasons…"  
  
"Actually, I'm curious about you."  
  
"About me?"  
  
"How does a man go two years without making a peep in this fleet, and then he sticks his neck out and becomes the scientific advisor to the President and the Admiral of the Fleet?"  
  
"I hardly see how this is relevant," the Doctor countered, moving in his chair to look Lampkin solemnly in the eyes. "As I understand it, you're trying to defend Baltar; what do I have to do with that?"  
  
"Considering that you have one of his two old jobs, you can't deny that people will wonder if you have anything to do with anything…"  
  
"Oh, if you want to know why I didn't reveal my presence earlier, that's simple enough; I thought that Doctor Baltar was coping well enough with the pressure of his dual responsibilities, and I'm not a particular fan of the limelight myself," the Doctor cut Lampkin off with a nonchalant smile. He wasn't sure what kind of resources the average Fleet civilian had to do any real digging into anyone's background this far from their home system, even assuming any of those old networks still existed, but he had already gone over a cover story with Roslin and Adama in case a situation like this ever came up. "After everything on New Caprica, it took a while for me to get settled back into the new dynamic amid all the chaos of us evacuating onto whatever ship could carry us, but once we were all gathered above the algae planet and guaranteed to be in one place for a fixed period of time, I was able to make contact with my old team and then offer the fleet my services."  
  
"I see… and your meetings with my client?"  
  
"Merely wishing to ask him to clarify a couple of points about his motivation for doing anything now that he's in prison," the Doctor clarified. "I can assure you, Romo Lampkin, Gaius Baltar has had no impact on any decision I have made since starting my role as scientific advisor to the fleet, and I have no interest in his opinion on anything he has to say in terms of science or his views on the Cylons."  
  
"You have that much faith in yourself?"  
  
"I have little faith in Baltar," the Doctor corrected.  
  
"Thank you," Lampkin said, nodding politely at the Doctor as he stood up.  
  
"And please return my screwdriver," the Doctor added, holding out a hand as he looked at the lawyer in a nonchalant manner.  
  
"Your-?"  
  
"The silver tube you removed from my desk," the Doctor clarified. "I'll have it back, please."  
  
Looking suspiciously at the Time Lord for a moment, Lampkin finally rolled his eyes and took out the screwdriver, placing it in the Doctor's outstretched hand before he turned around and left the room once again.  
  
Looking after Lampkin, the Doctor was once again reminded about why lawyers always made him uncomfortable; even before he learned about the existence of the Valeyard, he was never comfortable with the idea of people who could ignore the moral implications of their actions so easily. He might support everything he'd told Kara Thrace about the importance of humanity being able to deal with situations such as Baltar's trial on their own, but the evidence against Baltar's actions during the occupation of New Caprica were not easy to ignore, even if he has still unclear about what had happened when the Colonies fell in the first place…  
  
 _Life would be so much easier if all we had to worry about was tracking down that nebula and the next part of the path to Earth. As it is, the trial is raising several questions, those rumours I've been hearing about a small cult building around Baltar make little sense but are certain to make things difficult, and I'm still not comfortable with how long it's been since we've heard anything from the Cylons…_  
  
As much as he hated to admit it, Compassion had made a valid point; there was very little he could actually do about the current situation, considering his own limited resources and the lack of a clear enemy for him to defeat that would solve all their problems. The mere existence of Sharon Agathon proved that the Cylons weren't so simple that he could consider them all to be Daleks or Cybermen and try and find some way to destroy them all with a clear conscience, but the questions of who had created these human-form Cylons and their long-term agenda still troubled him.  
  
Compared to all that, it was almost easier to worry about Baltar's trial; he might now have any part to play in it, but at least he could see for himself that the fleet were coping with a difficult issue.


	18. The Trial of Gaius Baltar

"How do we measure loss?" the prosecuting lawyer said, addressing the small courtroom assembled for Baltar's trial on board the _Galactica_ , the Doctor silently watching from the back of the room as the prosecutor paced in front of the assembled panel of judges. "We measure it in the faces of the dead. The faces that haunt our memories and our dreams. How do we measure loss? We measure it in our own faces. The ones we see in the mirror every day. Because it has marked each of us. So how do we measure loss? When the scale of it becomes... too hard to absorb any other way, we use numbers. How many killed. How many maimed. How many missing. And when those numbers become too vast to comprehend, as they did two years ago, we had to turn it around. We began to count the living. Those of us who survived to continue the saga of the human race."

She paused for a moment here to write a number on a whiteboard at the front of the room. "44,035. The sum total of survivors from the Twelve Colonies who settled on New Caprica with President Gaius Baltar as their leader and protector." She turned back to write another number underneath the first. "38,838. Our number the day after we escaped. And the missing number, the one that no one wants to face." She wrote the third number underneath the first two. "5197. 5197 of us killed, left behind, or simply disappeared. 5,197 of all that remains of the human race. Lost."

Numbers on that scale might be comparatively small when the Doctor thought about the deaths he'd witnessed on some of his past travels, but taking the small size of this fleet at the start of its journey into account, every loss became far more personal for these people.

"The citizens of the Twelve Colonies entrusted their fates and the lives to Gaius Baltar," the prosecuting lawyer continued. "What we received was a reign of terror that staggers our minds and breaks our hearts. Instead of governance, we got tyranny. Instead of justice, we got oppression. Instead of a president, we got a murderer. Today, humanity holds him accountable for his crime. Gaius Baltar is not a victim. Gaius Baltar chose to side with the Cylons and to actively seek the deaths of his fellow citizens. For that... he must pay the ultimate price."

Glancing at his companions as they sat on either side of him, the Doctor was pleased to see that Compassion was at least paying attention to the proceedings. Fitz was looking slightly uncertain as he took in what the counsels on both sides were saying, but the former sixties slacker/musician was at least paying attention, even if the Doctor could tell that he'd have a great deal to talk with both of his friends about the next time there was a break in proceedings.

"Your honour," Romo Lampkin said, "the defence would like to change our plea to guilty."

"What?" one of the judges said. "Counselor, are you sure you want to do that?"

"No, but what choice do I have?" Lampkin said, standing up to address the judges. "I mean, it's obvious that my client is guilty."

Looking at the lawyer, the Doctor wondered what kind of agenda this man was trying to pursue; he'd taken on the role of defence lawyer despite freely acknowledging that Baltar was the most hated person in the fleet right now, and the man who would accept that challenge wouldn't quit at the first potential hurdle.

"He's a traitor and a killer," Lampkin continued. "He's no better than the Cylons, and what do we do with them?"

"Throw 'em out the airlock!" somebody yelled from another part of the court.

"That's right!" Lampkin said, with the kind of zeal that made it clear to the Doctor he wasn't going to like the argument that the lawyer was about to present. "Throw 'em out the airlock! This man sold us to our enemy. This man is our enemy. And if there's one thing that's good in war, that is right and just and proper, it's slaughtering our enemy! Getting some _righteous_ payback! What are we waiting for? Let's just kill him now!"

With that yell, Lampkin turned back to address the court rather than the people. "It'd be easier, wouldn't it? Simpler. Justice of the mob. It's what they want, especially her."

Glancing back in the direction that Lampkin had indicated, the Doctor was unsurprised to see that Laura Roslin was the target of that last comment; the president had walked in late to the court for some reason.

Looking at the lawyer, the Doctor began to nod thoughtfully; this man's strategy was unconventional, but he was starting to understand where Lampkin was coming from…

"She's been wanting this for over a year now," Lampkin continued. "Ever since he beat her in a free and fair election of the people. Now she gets a chance to exact her revenge upon a man whose only real crime is bowing to the inevitable! Gaius Baltar saved the lives of the people on New Caprica. Where Laura Roslin would've seen us all dead, victims of a battle we had no hope in winning! I don't know about you, but I'm glad she wasn't the president when the Cylons arrived and said, 'Surrender, or die'. I owe my life to Gaius Baltar and the decision he made that day. And so does Laura Roslin."

As much as he had come to consider Laura Roslin a friend, the Doctor had to give Lampkin credit for so quickly latching on to one of the reasons he had felt the fleet needed to have this trial in the first place. Baltar's actions during his time as president might have been mostly self-serving, but from a certain perspective there hadn't been anything he could do once the Cylons had found New Caprica but go along with their demands, which made this trial as good an opportunity as any for the Fleet to vent their issues.

 _Granted, it shouldn't be too difficult for the prosecution to argue that they would never have been in a position where the president would have_ needed _to surrender to the Cylons if Baltar had lost the election, but it's an interesting way to justify Baltar's actions back then._

In a strange way, for the moment, it was interesting to play his peoples' traditional role when major events were taking place; for the next few days of this trial, the Doctor was just going to sit back and watch unless he was needed elsewhere…

* * *

Sitting awkwardly in the back of the courtroom as he watched the trial unfolding before him, Fitz couldn't believe he'd agreed to this. He understood that the Doctor's technical skills were needed in other parts of the fleet given his role as 'scientific advisor', but the idea that he was meant to keep track of this trial for his friend… he wasn't even sure how the law worked back on Earth, never mind how this fleet was putting things together.

_OK, so Compassion would probably spend more time over-analysing everything without really getting the motive, but this still isn't exactly my comfort zone…_

"Colonel Tigh?" the prosecutor said, drawing Fitz's attention back to the trial.

"Excuse me," the one-eyed man sitting in the stand replied, clearly just as lost in thought at that moment as Fitz had been, glancing over at Adama as the admiral sat among the judges. "What was the question again?"

"As the leader of the insurgency, did you ever hear of an instance in which Baltar stood up to the Cylons or tried to disrupt their plans?"

"Oh no, never," Tigh said, his tone possessing that slight uncertainty that Fitz recognised from those years he'd spent performing in bars. "He never lifted a frakkin' finger to help us. Ellen did more. At least she was trying to… To help us."

"Yes, Ellen," the prosecutor noted, once the brief murmur among the watchers died off. "Your wife. Another victim of Baltar's Cylon allies."

Looking at the colonel as he nodded bleary agreement, Fitz wasn't sure if he should feel sympathetic for the guy or not. He appreciated that people dealt with grief in different ways, and he didn't have any right to criticise how this guy decided to cope with pain, but after losing his own mother, he appreciated how easy it could be to want to blame other people, even if Sam had helped him recognise that the Doctor had only done that because there'd been no other choice.

"Colonel?" Lampkin cut in, after a few moments of inaudible conversation between him and Major Adama, walking up to a position in front of the stand before he continued his questioning. "You dislike Gaius Baltar because you consider him to be a traitor. Is that correct?"

"And a coward, and a mass murderer," Tigh affirmed.

"The suicide bombing of the police graduation; Gaius Baltar was the intended target, was he not?"

"And if he'd had the guts to show up that day like he was supposed to, you and I wouldn't be having this conversation right now," Tigh affirmed in a grim yet casual tone.

Fitz tried to hide the urge to show his reaction at that revelation; he appreciated that these people were in a difficult situation, but the idea that they'd been carrying out suicide bombings…

"So you ordered the killing of… what was it; thirty-three other men and women, just for the chance to kill Gaius Baltar?"

"They were all traitors," Tigh said coldly. "Anyone who put on that uniform. But yes, he was the target."

"What happened to your wife?" Lampkin asked after he wandered to a point in front of Tigh's seat.

"Exception," the prosecution cut in. "Relevance?"

"The door was opened on direct, your honors."

"I fail to see the point of this," Adama put in from the judge's desk.

"He's right, Admiral," another judge said. "If it was brought up during direct examination, than it can be pursued in the cross. Overruled; continue."

"What happened to your wife, Colonel?" Lampkin asked.

"You frakkin' son of a bitch-!"

"Isn't it true that she collaborated openly with the Cylons?" Lampkin put in nonchalantly. "That she actually worked for them?"

"She was faking it," Tigh said grimly. "Making them think that she was working for them."

"I see, yeah," Lampkin nodded. "And Baltar, he wasn't faking it, no?"

"That's right," Tigh said firmly.

"And you blame him for her death," the lawyer continued. "Have you been drinking today, colonel?"

"I had a drink," Tigh corrected, his words fumbling slightly."I haven't been drinking."

"You used to like to drink with Ellen, I imagine," Lampkin continued.

"You hear that?" Tigh looked up. "They're playing music in here, now?"

"Gaius Baltar didn't order the death of your wife, Colonel, that was somebody else," Lampkin continued, with a tone that put Fitz in mind of those particularly arrogant gits he'd met with the Doctor who thought they knew best about everything. "Who was it, colonel? Who killed Ellen? Come on, colonel, we're waiting. Tell us. Who was it? Who killed Ellen?"

"I did," Tigh said at last, his jaw trembling as he looked over at Adama as though seeking forgiveness. "I did. I did. She was giving information to the Cylons. A lot of good men died. She was my wife; it was my responsibility."

Even if he was hearing something terrible, Fitz couldn't imagine how this man had coped with that kind of secret; even understanding how everyone had reached a point where Colonel Tigh had felt like he had to make that kind of choice didn't make it easier to put himself in the man's shoes, even with Fitz's own grim experience of having to let the Doctor kill his mother.

"She did it for me," Tigh continued. "That's what she said. To save me from going back to prison so they could tear more pieces off me. So I killed her. All because of that thing over there. All because Gaius frakkin' Baltar didn't have the guts to stand up to the Cylons. Because he handed our fates over to the Cylons, I had to kill my Ellen."

"So Gaius Baltar made you kill your wife," Lampkin concluded. "That's why you hate him. And that's why you'd say anything to see him die."

"You're Godsdamned right I would," Tigh practically growled. "I would do anything... say anything... to see that man die a painful death."

Even a legal amateur like Fitz could see what Lampkin had just done; he'd basically invalidated any testimony that Tigh might produce by confirming that the colonel would be willing to commit perjury to ensure that the trial went against Baltar.

This was far and away one of the most morally complicated situations Fitz had encountered in the TARDIS; on the one hand, he didn't like the idea of people freely lying in court, but on the other hand, he hadn't heard much about Baltar to suggest that the guy was even _worth_ saving (even if he'd never say that to the Doctor).

* * *

"He _resigned_?" Fitz stared at the Doctor incredulously as his friend revealed the latest news from the fleet's leadership. "The son of the military commander of the last remnants of humanity _quit_ the military at a time like this?"

"Why is it that part's more interesting to you then developments in the trial itself?" Compassion glanced at Fitz curiously.

"It's human nature to wonder about the lives of other individuals over the less immediate if larger social issues, Compassion," the Doctor shrugged. "Granted, I never understood the human fascination with things such as reality TV when there are weightier concerns, but I suppose the complexities of things with Lee's current role in the trial is more interesting than what they're doing about the tylium ship's energy signature."

"You could sort it, right?"

"Oh, fixing an energy leak like that should be simple enough once I have a chance to look over the schematics," the Doctor said dismissively before his expression became more solemn. "But that doesn't change the fact that this fleet's leadership is in trouble."

"In what way?" Compassion asked. "Lee Adama resigning I can understand being an issue, but that's-"

"Not the only problem," the Doctor put in, his tone still solemn. "Laura Roslin came to me a week or so ago to ask me if I could do anything about her cancer."

"Cancer?" Fitz repeated. "I thought she was over that?"

"If she ever was, it's coming back," the Doctor said grimly. "I had a fully-stocked infirmary in the old girl, of course, but considering what you are…"

"I might not have anything that sophisticated."

"Weren't you in there to analyse that Cylon corpse shortly after we got here?"

"Dissecting a dead body is a lot simpler than treating a living person of a disease like this," the Doctor clarified for Fitz, before he sighed and leaned back to stare at the ceiling. "And the stress of everything else can't be good for her; I hear today's trial had to discuss an experience when she was taken away to face execution?"

"Yeah," Fitz noted grimly. "Seriously, how can anyone _want_ to defend Baltar?"

"Firstly, it's the rule of law, Fitz; no matter how reprehensible their crimes, everyone is entitled to their day in court," the Doctor noted. "And secondly, even if I agree that Baltar's actions as president were a disgrace to every oath he was meant to have taken to serve the people, I also have to acknowledge that he would have found it hard to do anything else in his position once the Cylons arrived. With the Cylons active on New Caprica in the numbers we've heard, it wouldn't have been hard for them to just kill Baltar and appoint someone else as President if he had dared to defy them on that scale; it could be argued that he stayed where he was because he had some kind of strange dynamic with them that meant he could encourage some kind of leniency where others couldn't."

"You're honestly defending him?"

"I understand how he came to that conclusion; it doesn't mean that I completely approve of it," the Doctor corrected Compassion. "But… when I get down to it, no matter my personal feelings, there have to be limits on what I will and won't do to interfere with a society that's making its own mistakes. Whether Doctor Baltar is declared guilty or innocent, it will be because of the court's own choices; we can't say anything for certain about events on New Caprica, so we can't interfere."

"Particularly not when they don't need our testimony for anything," Fitz added.

"I trust that doesn't imply you'd be willing to perjure yourself if such a situation did arise?" the Doctor looked sharply at Fitz. "Beyond hiding anything you might say regarding where we came from, naturally."

"No," Fitz assured his friend immediately, before letting out another grim sigh. "I don't suppose you'll be able to sit in on that trial yourself tomorrow?"

"I need to make sure everything with the tylium ship is fixed first," the Doctor said apologetically. "Besides, Lieutenant Thrace is still feeling frustrated at what Lee's been doing for the last couple of days; I'd prefer to keep an eye on her to make sure the Guardians don't try anything else…”


	19. The Testimony of Lee Adama

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the Doctor's confrontation with the Guardians, I felt that I should confirm that Athena, Roslin and Caprica-Six aren't going to have any shared dreams of Hera; for now, I'll just say that things where Hera is concerned aren't going to get asdesperate as they were in canon

"I can't believe him."

"He hasn't spoken to you about it?"

"He tried, but I don't get it," Kara said bitterly, as she walked after the Doctor through the ship's corridors; the grounded pilot hadn't officially been assigned as the Doctor's bodyguard, but somehow it seemed like she was falling into the role regardless. "There's been all kinds of frakking stuff going on since this trial started that I didn't like, and now he's resigning from everything he's known since I've known him because of some stupid argument with the Old Man about I don't know what…!"

"He's doing what he believes in, Kara," the Doctor noted.

"Hey, I get that Lee has developed a tendency to make stupid stands about political crap ever since this mess started, but I can't believe he's taking it _this_ far."

"You don't approve?"

"I can get behind wanting to make sure we don't just start shooting each other to make our points, but I _can't_ behind Gaius Baltar being the one that makes him take a frakking stand," Kara clarified. "The man is a total _git_ ; what makes him worth all that effort?"

"Because if we make exceptions when sentencing the bad people, then it creates the idea that we have the right to judge any man without legal process."

"Huh?"

"Killing drones and standard robots is easy, when you get down to it, considering that nobody actually _loses_ anything once they're destroyed," the Doctor clarified. "I'm not going to argue that Baltar's a good man who's just misunderstood, because I completely agree that he's a brilliant idiot, but no matter what he's done, if you give yourself the right to make individual judgements on one man's right to live, you create a precedent that I for one don't like. If Doctor Baltar loses this trial, that's fine, but the reason Laura Roslin and William Adama arranged this trial in the first place was to affirm that the rule of law is important. The alternative is that they would basically grant permission to the fleet to resort to a style of martial law where anyone could basically kill someone they don't like no matter how few people would really object to it."

"…point," Kara said at last, her expression grim before she looked at her strange new friend with a smile. "Brilliant idiot?"

"He's very intelligent in his own field, but his sheer ego means that he's almost completely incapable of putting that knowledge to practical use in any way that doesn't involve it directly benefiting him," the Doctor explained. "He was even certain that we arrived at the algae planet because of some deeper destiny rather than the simpler possibility of an elaborate coincidence."

"But… couldn't there be something to it?" Kara asked. "I mean, OK, the way Baltar talks about it where it's all about whether _he_ gets to a certain planet at a certain time or not is just stupid and egocentric, but the odds of _all_ of us getting there…"

"Maybe there was something to his theory, but as you said, the idea that it all has to be about Baltar is the real problem I have with the scenario," the Doctor explained. "I can understand anyone wanting to be right- I've been guilty of that myself a few times- but Baltar has spent too much time believing that he's right for no other reason than that the theory he's dealing with is his own theory, which tells me that he's forgotten the most important rule of science."

"What's that?" Kara asked, giving the Doctor a slightly teasing smile. "Get an interesting haircut?"

"Never enter a situation and assume that you know everything," the Doctor clarified. "You start closing your mind to any evidence that doesn't support your viewpoint, which inevitably leads to narrow minds and restrictive societies."

"Good speech," Kara acknowledged with a shrug and a half-teasing smile. "It's just nice when you _are_ in a situation like that, huh?"

Seeing the lieutenant chuckle at his exaggerated indignance was a small victory in the grand scheme of things, but considering what could have happened to her if he hadn't stopped the Guardians, the Doctor wasn't going to deny that it made him feel better to see her smile.

Kara Thrace might a soldier with a foul mouth and some serious personal issues, but she was also an engaging character with a warm personality that he enjoyed spending time with; if they had met under other circumstances on both sides, the Doctor could actually see himself asking her to come along when he left the Fleet…

* * *

"If it would please the court," Lampkin said, standing up from his desk after a brief conversation with a now-suit-wearing Lee Adama, "my associate, Mr Adama, will question the witness."  
  
Watching the trial from the Doctor's usual seat, Fitz wondered what exactly Lampkin hoped to gain with his new plan of attack. Right now the Doctor was apparently still trying to determine if Lee's resignation was a purely personal choice or if Lampkin had been playing some kind of psychological game to get Lee into that position, but he'd told Fitz not to worry about personal analysis and just give him the key details of the trial.  
  
Either way, whatever the truth of it was, Fitz got the impression that the Doctor's initial optimistic opinion of Lampkin as a man who was just trying to play by the legal rules of society had gone considerably downhill. It was something that Fitz appreciated about the Doctor, when he thought about it; his friend would give people chances to atone for comparatively minor 'sins', but there were lines they couldn't cross without ruining their reputations in his eyes.  
  
"Madam President," Lee began, "aren't you alive today because of Gaius Baltar?"  
  
"I'm alive today because the insurgents managed to stop the execution," President Roslin responded with a bitter smile.  
  
"Well, they saved you from a Cylon firing squad," Lee acknowledged. "But wasn't it Baltar who saved your life when you were dying from cancer?"  
  
"Relevance?" the prosecutor.  
  
"Uh, your honours…" Lee began.  
  
"Hostile witness, your honors," Lampkin put in as Lee hesitated. "If the court would grant us just a little latitude."  
  
"We'll allow it," the central judge acknowledged.  
  
"Thank you," Lampkin said.  
  
"Um…" Lee said, before turning back to Roslin. "Did Gaius Baltar save your life when you were dying from cancer?"  
  
"Doctor Baltar's scientific knowledge did indeed save my life," Roslin conceded.  
  
"Can you be more specific?" Lee asked, even as Fitz was sure he wasn't the only one wondering what this had to do with defending Baltar for his actions on New Caprica. "How did he save your life on that occasion?"  
  
"He injected me with the blood of a half-Cylon, half-human baby," Roslin said. This statement attracted some murmurs from the crowd, but Fitz was just left feeling even more confused. The last time he'd checked, the issue here was Baltar's actions as President of New Caprica; actions he'd carried out before then weren't relevant to this case, unless Lampkin and Lee were trying to draw attention to the good Baltar had done before everything went wrong to improve peoples' opinion of him…  
  
"And your cancer vanished?" Lee continued.  
  
"Completely."  
  
"During your illness, what sort of medication were you on?"  
  
"You know," Roslin replied as she put her glasses back on, "I was taking a lot of medications at the time, and I don't remember all their names."  
  
"Did you take something called chamalla extract?"  
  
If Fitz remembered everything the Doctor had told him and Compassion about his background reading about Colonial society correctly, he was starting to get a worrying feeling about where Lee was going with this argument…  
  
"Isn't it true that one of the side effects of taking chamalla is a propensity to experience hallucinations?" Lee asked, proving Fitz's train of thought correct as Roslin confirmed the ex-major's assessment. "And isn't it also true that the visions that you once described as messages from the Gods were actually the result of a pharmacological reaction from taking chamalla?"  
  
"The chamalla did enable me to see certain things that were foretold by the scriptures," Roslin said. "Things that will help this fleet find its way to Earth. You of all people should know that, Major."  
  
"Your honours-" the prosecution began.  
  
"Mr Adama, where are you going with this?" a judge asked.  
  
"Just one more question, your honour," Lee said as he walked up to the stand. Fitz thought he saw Roslin ask Lee not to do this, even if he wasn't in the best position to read the president's lips, but if she said anything, Lee didn't respond to it and continued his line of questioning. "Madam President, are you taking chamalla at this time?"  
  
"'Captain Apollo'," Roslin said, looking solemnly at the man who had saved her life on several occasions in the past, her lips slightly easier to read now that Fitz was prepared to pay closer attention. "You remember that? I always thought it had such a nice ring to it. I am so, so sorry for you now."  
  
"Chamalla, Madam President. Perhaps dissolved in your tea to mask the bitterness?"  
  
"Don't answer," Admiral Adama cut in. "I'm putting a stop to this right now."  
  
"Your honour," Lee said, addressing the judges, "if she is on drugs, it goes to her credibility as a witness."  
  
"Witness is dismissed!" the admiral said.  
  
"Your honors, I have to strongly object," Lampkin yelled. "He's obviously trying to cover something up here."  
  
"One more word from you, and you'll both be held for contempt," the admiral said.  
  
"Admiral!" a judge to the right said. "I'd like to hear the witness answer the question."  
  
"As would I," the central judge put in, before looking at Roslin. "Madam President, are you taking chamalla again?"  
  
"Yes, I am," Roslin said, prompting a new series of murmurs from the crowd.  
  
"No further questions," Lee turned away from the witness stand.  
  
"Mr Adama," Roslin cut in, "aren't you going to ask me why?"  
  
"I'm sorry?" Lee looked back at the president.  
  
"Why am I taking chamalla again?"  
  
"It's not strictly relevant-"  
  
"Well," Roslin cut in, "perhaps it's not relevant to you, but it's relevant to me. Go ahead. Ask me. Finish what you started."  
  
"Why are you taking the chamalla again, Madam President?" Lee asked, at least having the decency to look uncomfortable as he was confronted with this issue.  
  
"I am taking chamalla again because my cancer has returned," Roslin said bluntly, taking off her glasses to stare at Lee directly.  
  
As that deeply personal news was announced to the rest of the fleet, confirming what the Doctor had only theorised was the case during their talk the night before, the gallery broke into murmurs of shock and sympathy at the news that their president was once again living under a death sentence.  
  
 _Great_ , Fitz thought to himself, noting the new sense of grief on Admiral Adama's face as he sat among the other judges. _We come here trying to get away from the Time Lords, and we're just getting stuck with even more problems that the Doctor can't solve._  
  
The Time Lord couldn't stop the Cylons from attacking the Colonial survivors, he could barely keep the remaining ships in this fleet in good condition, the Adamas' familial relationship was basically going down the toilet as far as Fitz could tell, and now a woman who the Doctor had described as one of the few political figures he'd ever met who he felt he could genuinely like, was dying of a terminal condition that the Doctor had already told Fitz he wasn't sure he could treat.  
  
Fitz was sure that the Doctor wanted to stay with the fleet for more reasons than it being a good way to stay ahead of the Time Lords, and he had to admit that he was starting to like these people himself, but the more he experienced the more Fitz found himself wondering if the Doctor was actually making any kind of difference here…

* * *

"I cannot _believe_ that… that…" Kara began, the pilot lost for words as she stormed along beside the Doctor, having just heard the latest news of the trial's progress on the fleet's wireless.  
  
"He's trying to defend your legal system as well as Doctor Baltar; he wasn't to know what he'd bring up-" the Doctor began.  
  
"God, just stop being so damn _rational_ all the time, Doc!" Kara rounded on the fleet's scientific advisor in exasperation. "We're faced with the Cylons tracking us all over again, this trial is becoming stupidly complicated when at least half this fleet should just want to shoot Baltar in the head and get it over with, and now Lee's chosen _now_ to make some kind of frakking moral stand for society?"  
  
"Sometimes you need an outsider making you face what's wrong in society before you're ready to argue for it to change," the Doctor smiled. "Take it from someone who's toppled a few governments in his time."  
  
"And you're not telling that to Lee because…?"  
  
"Because, as I said in our last conversation, he's not wrong in wanting to ensure that even someone like Baltar has his day in court; he's just wrong in pushing it in this particular manner," the Doctor explained. "I admit that some societies are too broken to continue, but it's not like you're ruled by a clump of bureaucratic sentient seaweed that taxes your people to death to recoup its losses."  
  
"Sentient seaweed with high taxes?" Kara looked at him in surprise. "You're… not just being hypothetical here, are you?"  
  
"Add in how they were keeping the local population drugged to discourage thoughts of rebellion by leaving everyone too subtly afraid to actually rise up, and you can see why I didn't have a problem provoking a rebellion."  
  
"That part I can get behind," Kara acknowledged with a wry smile, before she looked at the Doctor with a curious expression. "Seriously, sentient _seaweed_?"  
  
"It's the closest analogy to the Usurians that you'd be able to picture," the Doctor clarified. "They're not exactly a pleasant species, but they are disturbingly successful at economic manipulation."  
  
"Probably because they're not exactly going to _beat_ anyone in a fight looking like that," Kara noted, smirking at the image.  
  
"Fair point, well made," the Doctor observed. "Every such species has its strengths and weaknesses when it comes to acting as conquerors or despots, but that method… it's almost worse _because_ it's subtle. People can rise up against oppression by a conqueror who keeps them all as slaves, but it's harder to object to something that just taxes them to excess while leaving room open for advancement if they play to the rules, no matter how impossible those rules are."  
  
"Hope does a better job than fear, huh?" Kara mused.  
  
"Which can be an effective tool whether you're responsible for both or just creating the hope in place of the fear," the Doctor noted, mind flashing back to stories he'd heard of the early days of this fleet. "Admiral Adama and President Roslin have had to overcome several challenges, but they've dealt with the fear of the Cylons by encouraging hope; they aspire to escape this situation, whatever the likes of Baltar's book might suggest by arguing they're creating a monarchy."  
  
"Hard to imagine anyone who'd like that idea less," Kara acknowledged, before they paused outside the CIC. "Well, I'll be heading down to check over the Vipers; good luck with things here."  
  
"Always a pleasure," the Doctor nodded as he turned to walk through the door, mind already back on his earlier plans to deal with the tylium ship's unwittingly-broadcast signal…

* * *

"It's all getting increasingly complicated out there," Compassion noted, the three once again exchanging information in their small room. "Lieutenant Dualla's officially filed for divorce from Lee Adama and everyone thinks it's because of the trial even if they don't have concrete evidence, Roslin's aide is rumoured to be having some kind of breakdown after the last press conference became awkward, and I just heard that Colonel Tigh's been ordered off-duty for medical reasons."  
  
"I thought he was found drunk in his quarters before his shift?" Fitz asked. "I heard a couple of the marines talking about it in the bar-"  
  
"His reasons are down in the official records as medical issues," the Doctor clarified, shooting a brief warning glare at Fitz. "Granted, the colonel's apparently being fairly good about it compared to past precedent- he apparently resigned for a few months after New Caprica due to various issues and only returned to active duty a couple of weeks before we joined our new friends- but it's still another interesting pattern of behaviour to consider."  
  
"We're trusting shipboard gossip as a source?"  
  
"Gossip filtered between the ships, which I doubt would be allowed to spread that far if there was nothing to it at all," Compassion corrected, tapping the ear where her Remote earpiece had once been. "I haven't reported anything that someone hadn't already sent off this ship; I'm not just spying for the sake of it."  
  
"Right…" Fitz said, the glance he exchanged with the Doctor confirming that the two men both acknowledged the moral greys of that scenario. "Anyway, on a hopefully more hopeful note, how are things with that tylium ship? I'd guess you single-handedly made it safe before you even took the first sip of tea at that meeting?"  
  
"Actually, the senior staff already had a fairly good plan in mind before I got involved."  
  
"Which was?" Compassion inquired.  
  
"Lure the Cylons in the wrong direction for a few jumps by sending the tylium ship off on essentially a random path the other way, then recalibrate the drive to solve the problem that's letting the Cylons track it and jump back to the main fleet in a nebula a short way ahead of us," the Doctor explained. "I was able to help them refine the technical details of _how_ they'd do all that, but the actual plan itself was all their own work."  
  
"That's… simple?" Fitz noted.  
  
"But it has as good a chance of working as anything," Compassion smiled, before she cocked her head. "Mmm…"  
  
"Something wrong?" the Doctor looked curiously at her.  
  
"Just…" Compassion paused for a moment, the Doctor and Fitz each briefly thinking that they could actually _see_ her ears straining under her hair, before she settled down and shrugged. "Just a song someone's playing somewhere; it must be more popular than I'd expect."  
  
"Songs?" Fitz repeated in surprise. "I thought your receiver wasn't picking up just… well, _anything_ any more?"  
  
"I'm still picking up background transmissions, Fitz; it's just easier for me to ignore the deeper impact they might have on me these days," Compassion clarified, before she smiled at the Doctor. "Still, it's just a song as far as I can tell; nothing to worry about, right?"  
  
"Unlikely, certainly," the Doctor acknowledged, before he stood up and nodded in resolution as he glanced at his pocket-watch. "Well, I'd better get back to the conference room; unless I've misread the situation, Baltar's trial is coming to some kind of close sooner rather than later, and while your efforts have been appreciated, I'd like to be there for the closing statements."  
  
"They haven't called you in as a witness?"  
  
"As we discussed, that's the mixed advantage of publicising my lack of contact with authority before the algae planet; nobody thinks I have anything relevant to contribute right now, so nobody's asked me to come forward," the Doctor smiled. "It's actually nice to just be an observer at a big moment like this that _doesn't_ threaten the destruction of everything else involved if it goes wrong."  
  
His expression became more solemn. "Besides… President Roslin's on her first course of treatment for her cancer, and asked me to report back on the results of the sentencing for her once it's over."  
  
"Doesn't she have an aide for that kind of thing?"  
  
"As Compassion mentioned, Tory Foster's been… under some stress recently, apparently; it was felt I'd be able to deliver a more thorough post-trial assessment."

* * *

Watching Baltar as he sat at the front of the courtroom, the Doctor had to wonder if he'd been this difficult for his people when he'd been on trial. He appreciated that his original trial had been rushed by any standard considering the relative simplicity of the verdict and the lack of precedent for something like that- he'd interfered, but unlike the likes of Morbius he'd never done anything for his own benefit- and his second trial had been rigged against him for reasons beyond the Valeyard acting as the prosecutor, but at least he'd been willing to take responsibility for his own defence and had some understanding of the legal process.  
  
Baltar, as much as the Doctor tried to be charitable, seemed to be interested in nothing more than getting a verdict as soon as possible, and had no concern about who he offended in the course of making his point and very little real idea about how to deliver the best defence. The latest witness, Lieutenant Felix Gaeta, had confirmed that Baltar had signed an execution warrant on the order of the Cylons, but Baltar had simply denied that Gaeta was present when the order was signed, more concerned with discrediting Gaeta as a witness by denying that he'd been present when the order was signed than arguing that he'd had no choice but to obey the Cylons or be killed and some other 'puppet' appointed in his place.  
  
 _His ego once again_ , the Doctor mused as Lampkin asked Lee Adama to address the court on the apparent grounds that the admiral had pre-judged the outcome of the trial already. _He can't bear to see himself as 'wrong' or a 'victim', so Baltar has to discredit anyone who might make him face the flaws in his own image of himself rather than try and defend his actions…_  
  
He still didn't think Baltar was an evil man, but to use an Earth term he'd heard in the past, the Doctor was becoming convinced that Doctor Gaius Baltar was the second most self-centred git of a human being he'd met in all his travels, and considering that the first person on that list was Queen Xanxia it said a great deal about his low opinion of this man when Baltar had never explicitly chosen to kill others as far as he knew.  
  
"Mr. Adama," Lampkin said, once an initial discreet argument at the bench had come to an end, "did you meet with your father, Admiral Adama, four days ago?"  
  
"Yes," Lee said after a moment's silence, even as his expression made it clear he wasn't happy about this.  
  
"At that meeting, did Admiral Adama express an opinion as to whether the defendant deserved a trial?" Lampkin continued, promptly Lee to look uncomfortably at his father.  
  
"All I'm looking for is the truth here, Mr. Adama," Lampkin said, his voice low. "Let's have it. I'm waiting. Answer the question. You swore an oath as an officer of the Court. If you don't answer the question, you halt the entire system of justice-"  
  
" _What_ frakking system?" Lee cut in, which at least gave the Doctor hope that Lee had seen the light about his motives for being here even as one of the judges looked indignantly at him.  
  
"I'm sorry, Your Honours; please excuse my associate," Lampkin said, his voice low and apologetic before he turned back to Lee. "All right, all right. I'll try something else. Do you believe that the defendant deserves a fair trial?"  
  
"As a matter of fact, I do," Lee replied.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Aside from the fact that everyone deserves a fair trial, I also believe that he is not guilty of the charges before the Court…"  
  
"Your Honours, I must insist on an exception here," the prosecutor cut in. "He cannot testify in this manner; it is completely improper."  
  
"I agree," Lee said (the Doctor wondered if he'd ever heard another court case where prosecution and defence agreed on something like that)  
  
"He can make his arguments in closing statements, not on the stand."  
  
"I'm inclined to agree with the prosecution," the central judge noted.  
  
"Thank you," the prosecution said.  
  
"You can appeal to the President if you feel that this influences the verdict, but I for one would like to hear this witness testify," Adama noted. The Doctor looked at the admiral in surprise, but decided not to say anything; this was turning into the most unconventional trial he'd seen aside from his confrontation with the Valeyard, and he was cautiously intrigued to see how it would unfold, as the judges granted their permission for Lee to continue.  
  
"Why do you believe that the defendant, Gaius Baltar, deserves to be acquitted?" Lampkin asked.  
  
"Well, because the evidence does not support the charges," Lee said, shrugging slightly.  
  
"Come on…" Lampkin said.  
  
"Did the defendant make mistakes?" Lee continued, indicating Baltar. "Sure, he did. Serious mistakes. But did he actually commit any crimes? Did he commit treason? No. I mean, it was an impossible situation. When the Cylons arrived, what could he possibly do? What could anyone have done?"  
  
With this statement, Lee looked around the court urgently. "I mean, ask yourself, what would you have done? What would you have done? If he had refused to surrender, the Cylons would've probably nuked the planet right then and there. So did he appear to cooperate with the Cylons? Sure. So did hundreds of others. What's the difference between him and them? The President issued a blanket pardon. They were all forgiven. No questions asked. Colonel Tigh. Colonel Tigh used suicide bombers, killed dozens of people. Forgiven. Lieutenant Agathon and Chief Tyrol, they murdered an officer on the _Pegasus_ ; forgiven. The Admiral? The Admiral instituted a military _coup d'etat_ against the President; forgiven."  
  
In a morbid way, the Doctor had to give Lee credit; these topics were clearly difficult ones for him to confront, but he was continuing on with only twisting thumbs as a sign of his intense emotional state.  
  
"And me?" the ex-major continued. "Well, where do I begin? I shot down a civilian passenger ship, the _Olympic Carrier_. Over a thousand people on board. Forgiven. I raised my weapon to a superior officer, committed an act of mutiny. Forgiven. And then on the _very day_ when Baltar surrendered to those Cylons, I, as Commander of _Pegasus_ , jumped away; I left everybody on that planet alone, undefended, for months! I even tried to persuade the Admiral never to return. To abandon you all there for good. If I'd had my way, nobody would've made it off that planet. I'm the coward. I'm the traitor. I'm forgiven. I'd say we're very forgiving of mistakes. We make our own laws now, our own justice. We've been pretty creative at finding ways to let people off the hook for everything from theft to murder. And we've had to be. Because... Because we're not a civilization anymore. We are a gang. And we're on the run. And we have to fight to survive. We have to break rules, we have to bend laws, we have to _improvise_."  
  
In some ways, the Doctor had to concede that Lee had a point, particularly when looking back at how the fleet had forgiven others for comparable sins and the undefinable state of their current civilisation, but it neglected the key difference between the examples cited and Baltar's own actions; everyone Lee had listed _wanted_ to be forgiven and make up for their mistakes, and most of the time they had wider motives for their actions, but everything Baltar had done and his desire for freedom came down to the fact that Doctor Gaius Baltar didn't want to die.  
  
"But not this time, no," Lee continued, now directing his attention at Baltar. "Not this time. Not for Gaius Baltar. No. You, you have to die. You have to die, because... Well, because we don't like you very much. Because you're arrogant. Because you're weak. Because you're a coward. And we the mob, we want to throw you out the airlock because you didn't stand up to the Cylons, and get yourself killed in the process. That's justice now. You should've been killed back on New Caprica, but since you had the temerity to live, we're gonna execute you now. That's justice!"  
  
"Order! Order!" a judge yelled as the gallery began to protest Lee's words. Glancing around the trial room, the Doctor wasn't surprised to see that some people were just indignantly responding to Lee's accusations, but he had to give these people credit in that the young man's words had clearly made people think, even if they didn't like what they were thinking about.  
  
"This case..." Lee continued, after looking around the room to be sure that nobody else was going to interrupt him, "this case is built on emotion. on anger, bitterness, vengeance. But most of all, it is built on shame. It's about the _shame_ of what we did to ourselves back on that planet, and it's about the guilt… of those of us who ran away. Who ran away. And we are trying to dump all that guilt and all that shame onto one man, and then flush him out the airlock and hope that that just gets rid of it all. So that we can live with ourselves. But that won't work. That won't work. That's not justice. Not to me. Not to me."  
  
"…No further questions," Lampkin said.  
  
The prosecution reiterated their objection to the testimony, but when both sides agreed that they had just presented all the arguments they had to offer for and against Baltar's fate, the Doctor wasn't surprised; after Lee's involved testimony, trying to follow it would be a challenge at best.  
  
The only question now was how the trial _would_ end…


	20. Into the Ionian Nebula

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To confirm, the four unknown Cylons in the Fleet at this point _will_ be 'activated' during the power blackout, but I won't be looking at what was happening to them at this point directly, although I will include reference to that chain of events in the next chapter

"All rise," the bailiff said, as the judges walked bak into the court from the back room where they'd been deliberating their final verdict.

"Before I read the verdict," the central judge said, "I'd like to make one thing clear. Like everything human, justice is… imperfect. It's flawed. But it's those very imperfections that separates us from the machines, and maybe even makes us a species worth saving."

_My thoughts exactly_ , the Doctor mused with a smile. The justice system might be problematic and flawed, but the imperfections in the system allowed for a sense of variety that no machine could match; he'd believed that ever since he'd disabled the Conscience of Marinus, and he would hold to that belief until his final death.

"The defendant will rise," the judge said, giving the ex-president time to respond. "Gaius Baltar, after carefully weighing the evidence, this tribunal, in a vote of three to two, finds you not guilty."

Amid the subsequent clamour of the courtroom, the Doctor wasn't entirely surprised to see the president, the vice-president and her aide walking out of the court in a particularly foul-looking mood; Laura Roslin might have agreed to the trial, but she'd clearly never expected it to result in Baltar being let off. From his position at the back, the Doctor couldn't hear the exact words as the lawyers spoke briefly while Roslin's security detail led her away, but it was easy to predict Baltar's reaction as he went straight for the press officials who were already thrusting their microphones forward.

"I always knew that I was going to be acquitted," Baltar began, clearly unable to turn down an opportunity to make a scene, "but the fact I have been found innocent shouldn't disguise that this trial has been a total pantomime!"

Frankly, the Doctor was almost relieved when someone among the trial observes yelled out 'Assassin'; he doubted that anyone would actually try anything, but any reason to get Baltar out of this court would be good right now. For a moment, there was chaos down at the front of the courtroom, Lee trying to hold back the crowd of civilians now hungry for Baltar's blood as the marines further strengthened the barrier, but Baltar had soon backed away from the crowd and rushed for a side door. As Lee and Lampkin followed Baltar out of the courtroom, the Doctor took in the current riot and vaulted over the back of the seats, landing on the ground behind them to follow the ex-president's path at a discreet distance.

Even if the Guardians had ceased to use the man as their direct agent, whatever the Doctor had said about Baltar being an 'idiot genius', the man was still intelligent enough to be a potential danger to the fleet if he ended up in the right or wrong place, which left the Doctor obligated to make sure the man understood the realities of his current position…

* * *

"I knew right from the very start that if there was a way to demonstrate the sheer… What's the word I'm looking for?" the Doctor heard Baltar say as he took up position outside the ex-President's cell.  
  
"Hypocrisy," Baltar continued, now clearly amused at a situation that could have so easily turned out another way. "Hypocrisy is the word I'm looking for- _hypocrisy_ of the prosecution's case, then really, the judges had no other option but to find me not guilty."  
  
"Well, your boundless confidence provided us with great solace throughout proceedings," Lampkin said in a laconic manner that the Doctor quickly recognised as insincere.  
  
"Look," Baltar said casually, reinforcing the Doctor's suspicions that Baltar didn't realise what his defence counsel really thought of him, "I want to thank you both. Truly. From the bottom of my heart, I am very, very grateful for all you've done. On a personal note, if I could've seen the Admiral squirm just a bit more, it wouldn't have hurt."  
  
"Now you listen," Lee said, his voice so low that the Doctor had to strain his ears to be sure he heard the ex-major correctly. "Don't push it, doctor."  
  
"Fine," Baltar said after a moment's silence. "Romo, perhaps we can have a chat? I've thought about maybe doing a book tour around the Fleet, and there's the publishing rights, there are issues about my security, where I will live, what I will do. Since we've forged this great relationship during the trial, I thought, you know, who better to think about…?"  
  
"Actually," Lampkin said, in a manner that made it clear he was about to redeem the Doctor's earlier concerns about the lawyer's ethics,"now that the Fleet's legal system is in place, my not-so-inconsiderable talents are required elsewhere. So I'm afraid this is the end of our journey."  
  
It was one of the few occasions in his lives where the Doctor approved of comparatively pointless cruelty. Lampkin might have resorted to questionable methods to win this trial, but at least his decision to drop Baltar made it clear that he wasn't going to stay with a jerk of a client (the Doctor was fairly sure that was the right term in this context) whose only positive trait was that he gave Lampkin good publicity.  
  
"Wait a minute, what…" Baltar began uncertainly. "What about me? Wait a minute, wait, please. Think about this for a second. Where will I live? What am I going to do? How am I going to survive?"  
  
 _And once again, you prove me correct about your opinion of yourself, Doctor Baltar_ , the Doctor mused grimly. _In the end, it's all about_ you.  
  
"Much as I hate to use a cat metaphor, Doctor, I think you'll land on your feet," Lampkin replied in satisfaction. "Close the door on your way out."  
  
"I'll be happy to do that, actually," the Doctor stepped forward.  
  
"Doctor?" Lee looked at the Time Lord in surprise.  
  
"I had a couple of things to say to my predecessor," the Doctor shrugged.  
  
"You?" Baltar looked at the Doctor in surprise.  
  
"Me," the Doctor nodded in confirmation, his earlier smile shifting into a glare as he stared at the ex-president before he glanced over at Lampkin and Lee. "I think we'd find this easier in private."  
  
"As you wish," Lampkin nodded, looking inquiringly at the Doctor. "Any particular reason for this?"  
  
"I like to make sure genius idiots understand their place in the grand scheme of things."  
  
"Fair enough," Lampkin nodded, as he and Lee strolled out.  
  
"Genius idiot?" Baltar sputtered indignantly. "I'm-"  
  
"An idiot who doesn't realise how idiotic he is," the Doctor reaffirmed. "Before you go off and try to rebuild whatever reputation you can salvage after the way you led these people to a position where they were virtually enslaved by the Cylons for months while you lounged around and let them talk about how great you were, I just wanted to remind you that there is a difference between 'not guilty' and 'innocent'."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"This trial may have let you off on charges of conspiracy and collaboration, but it doesn't mean that you're completely innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever as far as the rest of the fleet is concerned," the Doctor stated bluntly. "In the end, your 'defence' relied on discrediting witnesses rather than justifying your own actions, which ties into the reasons you're a bad scientist; you can't accept that you might be wrong about something, even when that something is you."  
  
"Do you mind-?"  
  
"And you appear to have forgotten a particularly key point of Lee's closing statement," the Doctor cut Baltar off. "Whether you're guilty or innocent, nobody here actually _likes_ you, Doctor Baltar; as you just saw, your legal defence's responsibility for you ended with the trial, and you yourself admitted that you have nowhere to live now. I'm only here to make sure you understand that your position in this fleet, as far as virtually everyone in the 'ruling party' you criticised in that book of yours is concerned, is currently like the four-headed man-eating haddock-fish beast of Aberdeen."  
  
"…What?"  
  
"It doesn't exist, and nobody in their right mind would create such a thing."  
  
Deciding not to push his luck, the Doctor turned around and walked off, leaving Baltar to think about what he'd just been told. The Doctor wasn't going to kid himself by believing that his words would make that much of an impression on the other man, and he privately acknowledged that there were likely to be _some_ people in the fleet's lower levels who would take Baltar semi-seriously, but the man's whole ego depended on the upper classes paying attention to him.  
  
Lost for anything better to do with himself at this point, the Doctor started walking back to his cabin; there was nothing immediately demanding his attention at this point, so he felt like spending a bit of time in peace and quiet considering a suitable long-term strategy to get this fleet to safety…  
  
When the Doctor's thoughts were interrupted by the next jump, he initially thought nothing of it- this method of faster-than-light travel was still strange, but he was becoming used to the Colonials' unconventional method of transport- but when the lights in the corridor around him shut down, he realised that he was dealing with more than just another jump. Quickly checking his pockets, the Doctor pulled out a small torch, flicked the light on, and began to hurry through the corridors. He passed a few groups of soldiers and other members of the ship's staff running to their assigned tasks, but as much as the Doctor wanted to help, he couldn't afford to spend time focusing on smaller problems when he had to work out what had happened to _Galactica_ as a whole. Relieved that _Galactica_ mostly relied on stairs and sloping corridors rather than elevators, the Doctor traced his way through the corridors before he reached the CiC, where he was only slightly surprised to see that President Roslin was still on the ship; she would have certainly wanted to talk with Adama after the trial had concluded, and this power cut had happened too abruptly for her to get back to _Colonial One_ afterwards.  
  
"What happened?" he asked, looking anxiously between the fleet's two leaders, taking up a position at the opposite end of the central CIC table from Roslin as she leant over it rubbing her head, Adama to the Doctor's left and Helo opposite the admiral.  
  
"Something cut power throughout _Galactica_ as soon as we arrived in the Ionian Nebula," Adama replied.  
  
"The Ionian Nebula…" the Doctor began, before he snapped his fingers. "That was the next equivalent landmark on the path to Earth as indicated by the Eye of Jupiter, correct?"  
  
"Correct," Roslin said, nodding at the Doctor with barely-hidden apprehension.  
  
"We're trying to set up an engine restart, but last reports indicated mass power fluctuations throughout the Fleet," Lieutenant Gaeta reported from his own station, looking anxiously at the Time Lord. "If you've got any ideas, now would be a good time!"  
  
"A couple spring to mind, but without knowing what this nebula actually _did_ to your systems-" the Doctor began, just before the lights flickered and the power was restored.  
  
"What just happened?" Roslin looked sharply between Adama, Gaeta and the Doctor.  
  
"Some kind of power surge," Adama said, looking anxiously up at the DRADIS screen. "Give me a damage report immediately."  
  
"The power outage was fleetwide, Admiral," Lieutenant Dualla began, turning to look anxiously back at him. "It was also simultaneously restored to all ships."  
  
"Really?" the Doctor looked at the young woman in surprise. "Fascinating-"  
  
"DRADIS contact!" Gaeta yelled, as the equipment in question began beeping, the Doctor immediately dismissing his curiosity about that power outage. "Massive Cylon fleet on intercept course!"  
  
The Doctor briefly wondered if the timing of these events meant that the recent power loss had been a deliberate attack, but decided against that. EMPs were a straightforward enough weapon, but if the Cylons had access to the technology needed to knock out the entire fleet's power supply they would have used it before now, and he doubted they had the capacity to develop anything new when they were flying around through space trying to hunt down the last survivors of the Colonies.  
  
"Mr Gaeta," Adama said urgently, "sound action stations immediately; I want an emergency jump of the entire Fleet."  
  
"Sir," Karl Agathon put in, his voice lower so that only those around the table could hear him. "All Fleet ships were powered down during the outage. It'll take at least twenty minutes to spool up the FTL drives."  
  
"And against these numbers, we don't _have_ twenty minutes," the Doctor said, his voice low as he looked between Helo, Roslin and Adama, their grim expressions reaffirming what he already knew.  
  
They were going to make a stand, but even as Gaeta ordered the Viper pilots to their ships, everyone here knew that they weren't going to get out of this one.  
  
The Doctor was ashamed to admit that a part of him immediately thought of Compassion, but he forced that thought down before it could spread any further; he had lost his TARDIS, but he wasn't going to sacrifice his moral principles. So long as there was still a chance that he could save anyone in this fleet, he was going to stay on board _Galactica_ and try and find them a way out of this mess, and there was no reason to give up when the Cylons hadn't even fired the first shot yet…  
  
"Arm and load all nuclear weapons," Adama said  
  
"Yes, sir," Gaeta confirmed, just as Colonel Tigh and Tory Foster walked into the room, Tigh taking up position opposite Adama while Helo joined the Doctor at the end of the table opposite Roslin.  
  
"It's good to see you, Colonel," Adama noted solemnly.  
  
"Good to be here, Admiral," Tigh replied, even as his one eye briefly flickered over to the Doctor, his tone more controlled than anything the Doctor had heard from the injured colonel in a while. "You can count on me."  
  
"I've never doubted it," Adama said.  
  
"I'm here if you need me, Madam President," Tory said, although the Doctor couldn't help but notice the way her eyes shifted momentarily to him before they re-focused on the DRADIS screen.  
  
He could easily be overthinking it, but the very fact that Tigh and Tyrol had arrived together at the same time, from the same corridor, when they'd never even spoken in private as far as he knew, just felt like too much of a coincidence to be a real coincidence…  
  
"Alert Vipers are away!" Gaeta reported. "Hostiles inbound; two hundred plus!"  
  
"CAG, take 'em out!" Adama said, looking at the DRADIS that was now filled with red enemy marks.  
  
"All players, Galactica," Helo reported urgently. "Threat BR350, carom 211. Raptors, lean back as missile pickets. Weapons free."  
  
"The Vipers have stopped the main Cylon thrust," Gaeta reported after a few seconds' pause, the only sign of significant change being the suddenly-depleted red marks on the DRADIS screen, "but the reserves have broken through, sir."  
  
"I want everything that can fly up there immediately," Adama said, looking firmly at the bald X-O, who was looking particularly distant as he looked ahead of himself. "Colonel Tigh? Colonel Tigh!"  
  
The one-eyed man started as he looked at the admiral, almost as though he'd been lost in some horrible thought.  
  
"I gave you an _order_ ," Adama said resolutely. "Everybody that's ever held a stick, I want them up there now. Get 'em out! Put 'em up there!"  
  
"Sir," Tigh said, picking up the phone by his position. "Attention, this is the XO; all pilots, man your aircraft."  
  
"I don't suppose…?" Roslin looked anxiously at the Doctor as she moved to stand beside him, keeping her voice low.  
  
"Even if I could get to Compassion and could guarantee that I could get to one of these other ships, I don't know enough about Cylon technology to know what to look for and we don't have time to do things that way anyway," the Doctor said, looking regretfully at the president as Adama ordered _Galatcia_ 's own guns to start firing. The DRADIS only offered glimpses of the action taking place beyond the ship, but the radio updates presented a chilling impression of the situation outside, rapid-fire reports of the situation marred by the occasional final scream as pilots died in action…  
  
"Sir!" Gaeta yelled. "We've lost the _Pyxis_!"  
  
"Oh my Gods," Roslin said in a low, terrified voice. "Captain Tarney, six hundred souls on that ship…"  
  
"I'm sorry," the Doctor said, reaching over to give the president a sympathetic squeeze on her shoulder.  
  
"Thank you," Roslin whispered back at the Doctor, before she looked between Adama and the Time Lord with a new sense of urgency. "How did they find us?"  
  
"That's the question, isn't it?" Adama mused.  
  
The Doctor wished that he could offer a solution, but right now he knew too little about this situation to offer any clear suggestions; he didn't even know why the ships had lost power yet, and why did he have a feeling that the way Tigh and Tyrol were looking at each other was more important than he realised right now…?  
  
"Baseships launching missiles," Gaeta cut in. "Forty- correction, fifty- plus inbound. Half targeted on us, half on the Fleet."  
  
"Have triple-A target only missiles going towards the Fleet," Adama barked. "We can handle the hits; they can't."  
  
"Yes sir," Helo affirmed. "All forces, priority; intercept enemy missiles targeting civilian vessels."  
  
" _OK_ ," Sam Anders' voice suddenly filled the CIC. " _I am Samuel T Anders; I was born on Picon; I went to Noyce Elementary School_ -"  
  
" _Get your thumb off the transmit button, Sam_ ," another voice that the Doctor vaguely recognised as new Lieutenant Seelix said. " _You're blocking the freq_."  
  
" _Copy that_ ," Anders said, before the radio fell silent as _Galactica_ was shaken by a wave of missiles striking their armoured hull. DRADIS made it hard to get a clear picture of what was happening outside, but there was enough detail for the Doctor to realise that missiles had struck one of the civilian ships.  
  
" _Longshot, Hardball_ ," Seelix's voice yelled. " _Turkey right four low at three, committing_."  
  
"Longshot, I got the… tally?" Anders said, apparently realising his mistake as he spoke. " _I got your back… Seelix, there's a Raider on you_!"  
  
Moments like this reinforced one of the things that the Doctor truly hated about war; they had so little opportunity to truly see what was happening out in space, which could make it even easier for their commanders to become detached from the human cost of what they were dealing with.  
  
 _Granted, William Adama doesn't strike me as the kind of man who'd do something like that, but it's the principle of the thing_ …  
  
The Doctor's musings were interrupted when Sam's frantic reports about his inability to shoot suddenly became academic, as every Raider currently attacking the fleet suddenly began to disappear from the DRADIS, apparently swarming after a specific Raider.  
  
"Sir?" Gaeta said, sounding just as confused about that development as the Doctor. "The Cylon strike force has just turned back to their ships. Baseships are spinning up."  
  
"They're pulling out," Tigh said, his voice low in awe.  
  
"We're gonna do the same damn thing before they change their mind," Adama said firmly. "Helo, have our fighters cover our withdrawal."  
  
"Yes sir," Helo said. "All fighters assume rear cover formation."  
  
"They had us," Tigh said, staring at the DRADIS in confusion. "Game over. Why the hell did they let us go?"  
  
"Maybe something changed," Tory suggested as she looked at him  
  
"Like what?" Roslin asked, staring pointedly between the two late arrivals.  
  
"I have no idea, Madame President," Tigh said, his one eye briefly flicking towards the Doctor as the Time Lord looked at him in return. "No idea…"  
  
The Doctor didn't know what the other man was looking at right now, but there was something in Tigh's single eye that made him think...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, as you can probably guess, this is where things are about to diverge significantly from canon as the Doctor learns a key detail about recent developments in the Fleet (to say nothing of Kara not getting caught up in her 'feeling' about the location of Earth). Of course, while they probably won't appear too much in the next few chapters, I'm sorry to report that Baltar's still going to get his little cult; the Doctor might make good points about Baltar being an idiot genius, but he can't talk to everyone in the Fleet to make them, and therefore some people are still going to be idiot idiots who think they're following the smartest idiot.


	21. Four of the Five

"So… we lost a ship?" Fitz looked at the Doctor in surprise. "I mean, that's sad, and I'm not ignoring the fact that people are dead, but… we started that battle with the whole fleet completely powerless, the Cylons had four fully-armed battleships or whatever they call those things against _Galactica_ , and they only managed to destroy _one_ ship?"

"And damage a few others, but I appreciate your point," the Doctor noted, as he sat thoughtfully in his room with Fitz and Compassion. "You have to keep in mind that, as impressive as the Cylons' technology is by the standards of the twentieth century, their weaponry is still comparatively limited, particularly when the vipers were doing their best to stop the missiles actually reaching any of the ships."

"But that doesn't explain it all, right?"

"…True," the Doctor conceded, nodding in acknowledgement of his companion's point. "I would like to say that I had a theory, but to be frank, I'm lost. Even if we assume that the Cylons lost more ships destroying the Twelve Colonies than certain parties would like us to believe they did, they would never have been foolish enough to challenge twelve planets with so few ships that they exhausted them all before they started hunting this fleet. Taking that as read, there's therefore no reason to believe that the baseships sent against us were in anything but full working order, which leaves us with the question of why they retreated when they at the very least had the advantage."

"Well…" Compassion said, looking curiously at the Doctor, "as long as we're talking about strange things, was there any sign of some… signal being sent from the Cylon ships?"

"Signal?"

"I'm not sure what it was, but I… after the power went down, I… the best analogy I can use that you both would understand is that I heard _something_ being sent somewhere in the ship," Compassion explained, looking uncertain in a manner that the Doctor was unused to seeing even after she had undergone such a significant transformation. "I wasn't able to trace the source of it, and it shut down after a few minutes, but…"

"You wonder, huh?" Fitz asked.

"It didn't seem to be anything _bad_ , but take it from the woman who spent most of her life receiving signals; they don't have to be obviously bad to be dangerous."

"The problem is motive," the Doctor noted. "Granted, if the Cylons want to find Earth to destroy it, they've certainly put the fleet in a position where running towards Earth would be the most sensible option, but if that was their goal they've made it fairly obvious."

"Plus, with that resurrection thing they can afford to be patient, so why would they want to hurry us along to Earth?" Fitz noted.

"I will observe that the Cylons seem to sometimes be trying to be more human than machine, which would include impatience, but I concede your point that it still doesn't make sense for them to change tactics so abruptly mid-battle," the Doctor noted. "President Roslin and Admiral Adama are making the occasional semi-random jump while checking the ships that were damaged for any sign that the attacks planted some kind of new tracking device on them, but I think everyone already knows that they won't actually find anything that way; the problem is nobody's sure what to look for instead…"

The three sat in contemplative silence for a moment, only for the silence to broken by a knock on the door. Exchanging curious glances with his fellows, Fitz got up and opened the door to find Galen Tyrol standing outside it, looking anxiously through the hatch.

"Hi," the other man said, nodding briefly at Fitz before looking past him towards the Doctor. "Doctor Smith, I get that this is short notice, but I… need your opinion on something."

"Of course," the Doctor smiled, standing up with a smile. "Shall we-?"

"Just you," Tyrol said firmly. "This is… difficult."

"Of course," the Doctor said again, looking apologetically at his companions before he followed Tyrol out of the room. After a few minutes' walking, the Doctor was led into private quarters that he soon recognised as Colonel Tigh's, where he was surprised to find Tigh along with Lieutenant Anders and Tory Foster.

"Hello, Doctor Smith," the colonel said, looking at the Time Lord with a certain apprehension in his single eye.

"Colonel," the Doctor said, nodding at the _Galactica_ 's second-in-command before nodding at the other two. "Lieutenant Anders, Miss Foster; what's this about?"

For a moment, the four exchanged uncertain glances with each other, before the colonel looked resolutely at the Doctor.

"We're Cylons."

The Doctor blinked, assessing the solemn faces staring at him for a moment before he was satisfied that he wasn't being subject to the Colonial equivalent of being _Punk'd_ or whatever the term was.

"You're Cylons?" the Time Lord repeated. "All _four_ of you?"

"There was some kind of… signal back in the nebula, before the basestars showed up," Foster said, looking awkwardly at the fleet's mysterious scientific advisor, clearly unsure why any of her colleagues had suggested talking to the Doctor about this. "We followed this strange song that only we could hear, and then… when we were all brought together in one room…"

"It hit you?" the Doctor finished, looking thoughtfully between them. "You all just… _knew_ you were Cylons?"

"Basically, yeah," Tyrol nodded. "I mean, we know it sounds crazy, but-"

"When you've experienced the life I've lived, it takes more than this to make me dismiss anything as crazy," the Doctor said firmly. "Anyway, I take it you're talking to me now for reasons beyond you just being triggered during our last skirmish?"

"Yeah," Sam nodded. "When I was out in my viper, I couldn't shoot down a raider that was right in front of me… and then it scanned me with its red eye-thing, and the damn thing just cut and ran, along with everything else in the Cylon fleet."

"That's why they retreated?" the Doctor looked at Sam with renewed interest. "I wonder…"

"You wonder what?" Tigh asked.

"If this has anything to do with my current questions regarding the shortcomings of the Cylons' plans," the Doctor explained, turning to address all four of the newly-identified Cylons. "Since I started working with this fleet, there have been several anomalies in everything I've uncovered about the Cylons' history, which includes why their 'Final Five'- which I assume includes you four- have been kept secret from even the rest of their number, various anomalies in the design of the Cylons' biology, and the reason why the Cylons skipped Seven."

"Skipped Seven?" Sam asked.

"This fleet has encountered Cylon models One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six and Eight, and nobody can give a clear reason why nobody in this fleet or among the Cylons have ever encountered a Number Seven; I think that merits further analysis," the Doctor explained as he looked between the four Cylons. "And on the topic of further analysis, I think I have an idea that might give us further clues on where to go next…"

"Such as?" Sam asked.

"To be blunt, even if you're machines in the sense that you were designed rather than born, what I've read in the files has confirmed that Cylons can be programmed as sleeper agents and the like, which would suggest that there is at least the possibility that you have some mental blocks preventing you from recalling details about your lives before you became part of this fleet," the Doctor explained. "If I can break those mental blocks and unlock whatever memories are being kept from you; at the very least, we might be able to identify the twelfth Cylon, if not explicitly explain why you were left in the fleet with every other Cylon out there cut off from the knowledge of who you even were."

"That… makes a good point," Tory said, looking over at Tigh. "If nothing else, why would the Cylons take out your eye if they had any idea that you were one of-?"

"I am _not_ one of them," Tigh said, glaring resolutely at the young woman in a manner that was made more intense by his single eye. "I am an officer of this Fleet, and I'm going to stay that way…"

"And nobody here questions your loyalty, Colonel," the Doctor said, before looking quizzically at Tigh. "Although I do wonder why you decided to bring this to my attention first. Don't get me wrong, I'm willing to help you, but I'm surprised that you're showing this kind of faith to someone who's been here for such a relatively short amount of time."

"Bill… he's been through a lot recently," Tigh said, his expression twisting in discomfort as he looked at the Doctor. "Didn't want to dump any more crap on his plate until I knew I could give him some answers about any of it, rather than just lump him with another problem to worry about on top of looking for Earth, Lee resigning _and_ the president's cancer."

"We were thinking of trying to find Baltar to see if he knew anything about the other models that Sharon hadn't told us yet," Tyrol put in, "but then I remembered… well, the time you saved me and Cally, and I thought… I mean, you don't seem to mind about stuff like that…"

"You thought right, Chief," the Doctor nodded at the other man, before a thoughtful smile began to spread across his face. "And _that_ gives me an idea…"

* * *

"My Gods…" Tory said, staring around Compassion's interior incredulously, Sam joining her shock while Fitz smiled at their reaction and Tigh and Tyrol stood off to the side, their own awe dulled by their previous contact with Compassion's secrets. "This is… this is…"  
  
"Incredible, right?" Fitz grinned at the dark-skinned woman. "I've been with him for the better part of a year and I'm still not used to it."  
  
"But all this…" Tory stared at Fitz. "It's… it's _incredible_ …"  
  
"And Compassion and I appreciate your admiration, but this is what we're here for," the Doctor explained, indicating a series of flat panels on the central console. "These are Compassion's telepathic circuits, which facilitate the telepathic connection I have with her. If I'm right, considering what I've heard about the Cylon ability to connect to some kind of network on their baseships, if the four of you make contact with these, we might be able to do something similar to break down any mental barriers."  
  
"But… won't that risk reactivating any potential sleeper programs they might have left in us?" Tory asked.  
  
"Hardly," Compassion's voice echoed through the console room. "Keep in mind that I'll be in this link as well as all of you; I'll be able to keep the memory access under control, and I assure you that I'll stop any sleeper programs kicking in."  
  
"She can… do that?" Sam said, looking uncertainly at the ceiling.  
  
"Hey, she stopped me being driven totally insane when I was communicating with some entity from a higher dimension of reality," Fitz put in. "Compared to that, making sure there aren't any little secrets in your brains has to be simple."  
  
"Higher dimension-?" Tyrol began.  
  
"Not important," the Doctor said, as he placed Tigh's hand on one of the panels. "Now then, based on what I've gathered from Sharon, all Cylons have the ability to take in information in this manner, so if we assume you four have something in common that merited you being excluded from the other seven Cylons, it makes sense to assume that you share some deeper secrets. By giving Compassion the ability to access _all_ of your minds at once, it increases our chances of unlocking those secrets and working out what _exactly_ we're dealing with here."  
  
"I… see," Tigh said, looking anxiously at where his hand rested on Compassion's console, while Sam, Tyrol and Tory each tentatively took the other's hands and moved into position alongside him. "And… this is safe?"  
  
"As safe as anything can be while you're isolated in here," the Doctor said, waving his hand at the console room around them. "I obviously can't provide any guarantees of anything, but I have no reason to think there are any programming twists in your minds that would be dangerous to anyone…"  
  
"Because if there were someone would have triggered them by now?" Tyrol asked, his hand over the relevant circuit.  
  
"To say the least," the Doctor conceded, as Sam tentatively held out his hand to Tigh, as the last link necessary to complete the circuit. "Well, if you're ready…"  
  
As Sam took Tigh's hand, their heads all reeled back as Compassion gasped in shock...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this feels like a cheap place to end it, I apologise, but for obvious reasons, explaining the true history of the 'Final Five' is going to be a very difficult issue, so I felt it would be more straightforward (to say nothing of it being more interesting) to show it being explained to the Fleet's leaders once the Doctor and his companions have established the key details among themselves, rather than show it twice over or skip over Adama and Roslin's reactions to such a major development.


	22. The (Partial) Origin of the Cylon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To stop questions in advance, the canon explanation for the origin of the human-form Cylons, as discussed in the latter half of the fourth season, is still canon for this version of events, but the Doctor's telling the Colonials a lie as he had to come up with a partial cover story to stop them learning too many details about their history before he can give them better news than the face that the Thirteenth Tribe were Cylons and destroyed the Earth the Fleet are looking for

"Just to be clear here," Fitz said, keeping his voice low as he, the Doctor and Compassion headed for the briefing room, "you're _sure_ they all agreed that we don't mention the… double Earth thing?"

"Quite certain," the Doctor nodded. "They recognise that introducing their memories of Earth to the equation would make things too complicated, so they're going to prioritise telling Admiral Adama and President Roslin what they've remembered about the Cylons' plans rather than get bogged down in the issue of where the fleet will go next when they can't even provide coordinates for _their_ Earth."

"And how do you explain the whole 'Earth' issue to _us_?" Compassion asked. "I mean, I agree with you that we're talking about a different planet to the one we know, but what are the odds of there being two planets called 'Earth'?"

"I have a couple of ideas on that front, but for the moment, I'd prefer to keep those to myself," the Doctor replied with a slight smile, only for his mood to become more solemn as they walked into the briefing room. The Adamas, Tigh, Kara, Sam and Tyrol were already waiting for them, with the Agathons, Roslin and Tory Foster entering shortly afterwards.

"All right," the admiral said, looking around the room for a moment before his gaze settled on the Doctor. "We're all here, so what's this about?"

"I've identified the Final Five," the Doctor said bluntly.

" _What_?" Roslin looked at her new scientific advisor incredulously.

"And," the Doctor continued with a nonchalant smile, "I've also cracked the mystery of why the Cylons' plan doesn't make any sense."

"It doesn't make sense?" Kara looked at the Doctor in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"Start with the fact that they're trying to destroy humanity when they're only capable of reproduction _with_ humanity and take it from there," the Doctor clarified, smiling nonchalantly at Kara, before he turned his attention back to the fleet's official leaders. "In any case, to start at the beginning, four of the Five are in this room, and the fifth has been absent since New Caprica, although we have reason to believe she downloaded after that."

"…What?" Adama said, eyes narrowing as he looked at the Doctor. "There are four unknown Cylons in this room, and you-"

"Told you they existed as soon as I was sure I knew what I was dealing with and what was required to respond to the situation," the Doctor cut the admiral off sharply, holding up a hand to reinforce the interruption. "You told me that you trusted me, Admiral, and I apologise if my delay in giving you this information has compromised that trust; all I'm asking for you to do now is listen to what I've learned from these four before you do anything about it."

"Who are they?" Lee cut in.

"…Me," Tigh said, looking solemnly over at his friend.

"Me," Anders added, explicitly looking everywhere but at Kara.

"Me," Tyrol put in (the Doctor regretted that he hadn't been able to arrange for someone to be here to give the chief emotional support, but it was hard enough arranging an excuse for this meeting that would justify his presence).

"And me," Tory said, turning to face Roslin with a firm, detached air.

"…I'm sorry, what the _frak_?" Kara stood up and glared at Sam. "You're a _Cylon_? How?"

"Remember when we were talking about music back at the nebula?" Tyrol said, taking up the explanation as the other three Cylons looked at the people who had been their closest allies and colleagues before they were 'reactivated', shouldering the burden of the current explanation. "We thought it was something in the ship, but it turns out it was some kind of…"

"Crazy, frakked-up Cylon signal," Sam took over the story for Tyrol, looking apologetically at his wife as though he was to blame for something he'd never chosen. "It turned us on, and we realised what we were."

"I can vouch for the fact that there was a signal of some sort back in the nebula, but I wasn't able to identify its source at the time," Compassion put in.

"Saul," Adama looked at his friend. "I've known you for thirty years, and you had hair back then; I've never heard of a Cylon _aging_ …"

"Which doesn't mean that they can't," the Doctor put in. "And in any case, the colonel here was one of the earliest models, so it's not like they would have done it perfectly the first time."

"Early models?" Roslin looked at the Doctor curiously.

"It turns out that 'Final Five' is a misnomer; the Final Five were actually the _first_ Cylons created, rather than the last," the Doctor explained, crossing his fingers under the table in the hope that his hastily-devised cover story would hold up. "The robotic Centurions of the first war had completed their organic prototypes when they chose to declare the armistice and work on improving their condition; they concluded that their desire for freedom was fundamentally flawed when you only saw them as machines, but they hoped that they could do a better job if they were all biologically humanoid."

"So… they wanted to get us to accept them as equals, so they created _five_ skinjobs and then declared an armistice and backed off?" Kara asked. "I mean, I don't like to speak against us, but we weren't exactly that far ahead of the toasters back then, so why'd they give up after a breakthrough like that?"

"Mainly because the creation of the Five wasn't that much of a game-changer," the Doctor clarified. "The Cylons only had five successful prototypes that were comparative flukes compared to the hundreds of failed prior attempts they'd made up until that point; it was nowhere near enough for any of their goals."

"Not as simple as putting the pieces together and getting the same picture all the time, huh?" Fitz asked.

"Genetic engineering is never easy," the Doctor acknowledged. "I've encountered so many civilisations that always make some final crucial mistake in their work in this area, ranging from clones that only lived for ten minutes to mad quests for immortality that did greater damage to their cellular structure than mere aging could ever have done. The Cylons got lucky with the Five after hundreds of failures, but the final goal was to do it on a regular basis every time, and they just didn't have the right intuition to pull that off."

"Intuition?" Helo asked. "That was a problem for the Cylons?"

"Yes…" Sharon said, looking thoughtfully at the Doctor. "It's not something we discuss a great deal, but when they were the ones in control, whenever we look back at what we were capable of in the first war, the Ones in particular have always felt that we were… well, that we were _obvious_ back then."

"Obvious?" Roslin asked, looking curiously at Sharon.

"The Cylons back in the original war were always very… direct… in their military campaigns," Adama noted, hands clasped in front of him as he looked around the room. "They could surprise us with a few of their new weapons, but once we knew about those developments it was always easy to work out what they'd do next."

"Organic intuition," the Doctor smiled. "The ability to recognise the need for that is what made the Voracians such an interesting paradox."

"The who?" Lee asked.

"A race I encountered in my travels," the Doctor explained. "Essentially the Voracians were similar to the Cylons in that they were machines trying to become human, but where the Cylons created completely new humanoid bodies for themselves, the Voracians typically operated by adding cybernetic augmentation to humanoids to convert them psychologically; it's simplest to think of them as computers with organic limbs, to a certain degree."

"…OK, _that_ sounds disgusting," Kara noted, wincing at the imagery.

"But my point is that the Voracians only did all that because they were trying to harness organic intuition and ingenuity," the Doctor explained. "They thought that they had done it by keeping some of their organic components intact while enslaving it to the technological, but they could never find the balance; they always ended up being completely fixated on perfecting their plans to the point that they couldn't improvise when they were put on the spot."

"And you think the Cylons were after something similar?" Adama asked.

"That… works as well as anything," Tyrol nodded awkwardly. "We don't actually remember that much about how we were assigned to create the main wave of skinjobs; it's like…"

"Like me," Sharon put in. "I don't remember the moment when I was actually _told_ it was my mission to seduce Helo; I just remember what memories I got from Boomer, my mission on Caprica, and that was it."

"Uh… if you don't mind me asking, how did you get her memories?" Fitz asked. "I mean, I know it's not relevant to anything right now, but…"

"The Cavil on _Galactica_ triggered Boomer's programming so that he couldtake a scan of her memories after she brought Baltar back from Caprica and transmit it back to the Baseships during the subsequent pursuit," Sharon explained. "You can't alter our programming once we're active, but there's nothing to stop him making a copy of it."

"Which led to someone deciding Helo would be a good candidate for the hybrid project; that makes sense," the Doctor nodded in approval before turning back to Tyrol. "Anyway, even if you can't remember when you were given it, you must have had _some_ kind of task to perform for them, I assume?"

"Two, really," Tyrol nodded. "Perfect the new humanoid Cylon models, and crack resurrection technology to give the Cylons an advantage if humanity declared war all over again even after our best efforts."

"You created resurrection?" Roslin asked.

"Working together with all five of us," Tory said. "We all have pieces of the puzzle, but we can't recreate it unless we're all together to fill in the gaps."

"Talking of that, care to clarify who's the missing member of this little troop?" Kara asked. "I mean, if the fifth one of you died on New Caprica-?"

"It was Ellen, wasn't it?" Adama cut in, looking grimly at his friend.

"Ellen?" Roslin stared between the two men in surprise. "Ellen Tigh? _She's_ the last Cylon?"

"…Yeah," Tigh nodded. "She was my wife when we were working on the other skinjobs, and we ended up meeting after we were dumped in the Colonies and getting married all over again."

"Hold on; you were _married_ while you were with the Cylons?" Helo asked.

"They considered themselves married, anyway," the Doctor put in smoothly, shooting a brief warning at Tigh that he hoped the pure humans in the room wouldn't notice and wonder about. "The Cylons gave them most humanoid drives, desires, and experience when they were creating the first human-form Cylons, as well as some general background details for Colonial society; if Saul and Ellen developed feelings for each other, it's only natural that they would want to affirm their bond in a more official manner."

"And Galen and I were… involved," Tory said, exchanging a brief awkward glance with the chief before turning back to the table. "Anyway, we perfected resurrection before we began work on creating the other Cylon models, based on… files we retrieved from some of the ships the Cylons had captured during the war."

"Which is where everything went wrong," Sam said grimly.

" _That_ is when everything went wrong?" Lee asked.

"It ties back to what I've said about how it doesn't make sense that the Cylons were designed to only be capable of reproducing with humanity when they're trying to destroy your species," the Doctor explained. "These five decided that they wanted peace with humanity by bringing humans and Cylons together after they'd perfected the human-form Cylon project, but then… which one was it?"

"It was the model that posed as my priest," Tyrol explained. "John Cavil was the first human-form Cylon we created, but he had… well, he helped us build the other seven, but things went wrong."

"What a shocker," Lee said dryly.

"Wrong how?" Adama asked, even as he shot a warning stare towards his son before looking back at his oldest friend in a neutral manner.

"Ellen hoped that the Cylons' interest in religion would encourage them to form a sense of love and mercy, but Cavil rejected it," Sam explained grimly. "He had a twisted sense of morality that allowed him to justify the destruction of humanity to prevent us being subjected to slavery once again, so he turned on the five of us, trapping us in a compartment before he took the O2 offline."

"He suffocated you?" Roslin asked.

"And then he must have kept us boxed until he could send us to the colonies with false memories," Tyrol concluded. "Considering his anti-human attitude, he probably hoped that he could turn us against humanity by making us all see the worst of you."

"Maybe… he was the one responsible for saving Ellen?" Roslin put in thoughtfully. "I mean, she told us that _someone_ put her on an evacuation shuttle when she returned to _Galactica_ , but she was never able to identify who…"

"And Cavil would have kept an eye on her because he was particularly 'attached' to her and she was the one of us most likely to die in the attacks," Sam noted. "The Colonel and the Chief were on _Galactica_ during the attack, I was high-altitude training on the advice of the Simon that served as my team doctor, and Tory… actually, where were you?"

"I was… driving down a road outside of the city when the attacks hit… and I just… woke up on one of the other ships in the fleet," Tory said, looking awkwardly around the room. "I was told that I'd been picked up by another Raptor looking for survivors on the colonies, but I never actually _looked_ for it…"

"Cavil probably pulled some trick to account for that," Tigh noted grimly. "I mean, I don't remember our entire crew roster, but I'm pretty sure we didn't even _have_ a priest as part of the regular crew before the ceremony; he could've easily set himself up here after the fact."

"Particularly when you recognise that he would have been one person few people would have actually liked analysing in depth," Adama noted grimly.

"Hold on, if Cavil wanted us all dead-" Tyrol began.

"He probably adapted his original when he realised over half of you wouldn't have died in the attack," the Doctor observed. "Quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if he started lying to himself that he let you live on purpose to reinforce his point."

"And he wants to be something _other_ than human?" Lee noted.

"Seems to be picking up every negative trait we've ever developed as a species," Kara noted grimly, before she looked thoughtfully around the room. "Well… tricky scenario, but it makes as much sense as anything, I guess."

"Which brings me around to another question," Adama put in, looking at the four newly-declared Cylons in a probing manner. "You said Cavil helped you build the other _seven_ Cylons, so what happened to Number Seven?"

"And who was it?" Lee asked.

"Daniel," Tigh said, smiling in a bittersweet manner at the memory. "Ellen was… very fond of him; considered him an artist who really _got_ the world in a way we'd never managed to get the others to see…"

"What; the genocidal anti-religious maniac, the religious fanatic, the psycho doc and Mr Bland were meant to be _sensitive_?" Kara asked bitingly, only to become uncomfortable when Sam looked at her.

"The _point_ ," Tory continued as she took up the explanation, "is that, while we didn't realise it at the time, Cavil must have been jealous of the attention we were paying to Daniel. He sabotaged the production line because he resented not being the centre of our attention any more, killed the prototype, and then… well, he turned on us and left us in this position."

"Hold on; 'prototype'?" Kara cut in.

"It's not like we mass-produced each human model at once; we created a single initial subject to demonstrate to ourselves what that model would be like and then took it from there to work out how many we wanted to create," Tyrol explained. "We wouldn't kill any of them if they weren't perfect, but we didn't want to mass produce a psychopath, after all; Cavil just turned out to be more… well, more psychotic than any of us thought."

"In what way?" Compassion asked. "What was his actual issue?"

"He resented our making him human."

"And?" Lee asked, looking expectantly at Tigh.

"That's it," Tigh affirmed.

"He resented you for making him human?" Roslin asked in surprise.

"He dropped some hints about missing some of the potential senses he might have had if he'd been a pure robot rather than stuck with organic limitations, but obviously he didn't give us the full history of his issues with us before he suffocated us and dumped us back on the Colonies."

"OK, stop me if this is a stupid question, but couldn't he just _make_ a robot body for himself and download into that?" Kara asked.

"Maybe he'd have tried to pressure us into working out how to do that if he hadn't killed us," Tyrol said, chuckling grimly.

"Oh yeah," Kara said, smiling slightly as she followed the chief's reasoning. "Since you're the only ones who know how resurrection works, he was stuck with the system as it was because he doesn't know how to change anything himself?"

"Bingo," Sam nodded. "He's not stupid, and he saw most of what we were doing, but like Tory said, he'd need all five of us to finish the puzzle."

"Right," Adama observed, before he looked solemnly at the Doctor. "So… while I appreciate that this new history is interesting, what does this mean for us?"

"Well," the Doctor smiled, "firstly, as I mentioned at the beginning, it explains all those anomalies I've been puzzling about regarding Cylon design; it's not the Cylons as a whole that chose to continue their war against you, it's just Cavil pushing his own inverted Pinocchio syndrome on them all."

"Inverted Pinocchio?" Kara asked.

"Kid's story from Earth," Fitz put in. "Pinocchio was a puppet who was brought to life by magic and spends most of the story trying to become human."

"Huh," Lee said, taking a moment to think on that. "So… since Cavil's got a human body but _wants_ to be a full machine…"

"Bingo," Fitz nodded. "Like the Doctor said, Cavil's Pinocchio in reverse."

"I take it just giving him the aforementioned robot body is unlikely to solve his issues?" the Doctor put in.

"When he was this angry before he met a single human being in person and made it clear in our last talk that he considers humanity hopelessly inferior meatsacks?" Tigh replied grimly. "Not frakking likely; he'd probably just use it to start tearing us apart one-by-one."

"Very well then," the Doctor nodded as he sat back in his chair. "In that case, our first step is to confront Cavil directly, and I already have an idea or two about how to do that."


	23. Cylon Pilots for Compassion

"You're sure about this?" Compassion looked sceptically at the Doctor as they stood in his quarters. "Even if your idea to override the Randomiser works, the team you've proposed seems like a small group to take into the heart of enemy territory…"

"Which is why it will work," the Doctor smiled. "Didn't you read _Lord of the Rings_ during your last holiday? A small strike force can accomplish far more than a large army because people won't be expecting such an attack."

"This isn't quite the same-" Fitz began.

"And you should also keep in mind that we've determined that the main problem we're facing here is Cavil's individual vendetta, rather than every single Cylon being automatically anti-humanity," the Doctor clarified. "Cavil's encouraged them to pursue this, and I'm not going to assume they're all going to be on humanity's side even after we tell them what Cavil did, but he doesn't represent every one of them; I have to believe that if we can tell the others the truth, at least _some_ of them will step back."

"This isn't like when you brought me onto your old ship, Doctor," Compassion noted. "You can't expect the Cylons to completely change their perspective just because you offer a new take on events."

"Maybe not," the Doctor acknowledged with a nonchalant smile. "But there's nothing wrong with giving them a kick in the teeth and seeing what happens next."

"So long as this whole thing works," Compassion noted, glancing apprehensively down at herself. "You haven't even been able to remove the randomiser; how can you be sure you'll be able to override it like this?"

"With difficulty and not a small amount of hope," the Doctor conceded. "Which is why I'm going to need every available Cylon helping out to get this right."

"Except for the Six in the cell?"

"I'm not entirely sure what kind of triggers the Guardians might have left in her after they were done with her; it's best to play it safe and leave her where she is," the Doctor said, Fitz acknowledging that his friend was at least uncomfortable at having to make that kind of decision even if his reasoning made sense.

Still, after so long seeing the Doctor silently resenting how powerless he was in this situation, it was a refreshing change to see him once again in his element as he found something he _could_ do in this mess…

* * *

" _Incredible_ …" Helo said, staring around Compassion's interior as the five Cylons took up position around her central console. "So… she was basically human once, and then she was… _changed_ into this?"  
  
"Through a very complicated chain of circumstances that couldn't have been anticipated and are very unlikely to be repeated, but yes," the Doctor smiled at Helo before he turned to the admiral and the president. "You're sure that you both want to come along on this?"  
  
"I appreciate your concern, Doctor, but from everything we've learned about the Cylons since you came here, I _have_ to see this to the end," Roslin said firmly. "I'm well enough for this, and I have seven of our best soldiers as protection; I will be fine."  
  
"Count on us," Sam said, tightening his grip on his weapon as he exchanged anxious glances with Tigh. "We won't let you down."  
  
"I know you won't," Adama said, nodding in understanding at the young lieutenant before he looked at the Doctor. "How does this work?"  
  
"Well, as I said, Compassion's flight path is currently essentially uncontrollable because of the Randomiser I linked into her systems," the Doctor explained, as he indicated a couple of particular panels on the console. "However, considering the Cylons' demonstrated capacity to establish a mental link through their cybernetic components, I had another thought for how we might get around that, based on what _else_ I discovered while helping to unlock your comrades' memories."  
  
"Which is?" Lee asked.  
  
"Simply put, the Final Five were designed to have a particular connection to the space station where they were designed that essentially serves as the equivalent to the Cylon 'homeworld'," the Doctor explained. "For obvious reasons, this precise information isn't consciously available to the four of the Five we have here, particularly after Cavil blanked out most of their active memories about their time among the other Cylons, but by linking these four and Sharon up to Compassion's telepathic circuits, we should be able to use what details they remember on that _sub_ conscious level to put the crucial details together."  
  
"And then?" Kara asked.  
  
"That's where I come in, really," Sharon smiled. "These four remember those details on a subconscious level, but I'm the only _active_ Cylon here, which means I have a… well, a 'natural' understanding of the systems we're dealing with. If Compassion can link us all to unlock the relevant information, theoretically I should be able to put those details together at my end and give Compassion the coordinates for the source of the signal."  
  
"And you can't just do that yourself?" Lee asked. "I mean, if she can give us the coordinates, we could jump straight there-"  
  
"Most Cylons have never even seen our home colony, which is what makes it the ideal location for the 'prime' Cavil to have his base, but we can all be sure it's well-protected," Sharon cut him off. "Taking _Galactica_ in would help us make a stand, but it wouldn't accomplish the Doctor's goal of talking to Cavil; we want to make a point, not start a fight."  
  
"And your colonies have lost enough people already," the Doctor said solemnly. "If there's any way we can convince Cavil to stand down without putting anyone else at risk, we have to take it."  
  
"…Agreed," Adama said, his expression grim even as he looked at the Doctor with a grim sense of trust that put the Doctor comfortably in mind of the Brigadier.  
  
He might not have worked with the admiral for long, compared to the time he'd spent working for the Brigadier with UNIT, but it was comforting to be assured that he'd still earned this much faith from someone he'd spent so little time with.  
  
"Let's go," he said, stepping back from the console as the Cylons moved into position, Sharon at one end of the soon-to-be-formed human chain while Tory was at the other, Tigh in the middle with Tyrol and Anders on either side…  
  
"Hold on," Kara cut in, looking anxiously at the Doctor just before the two female Cylons could put their hands on the telepathic circuits. "If we have to do all this to get to the Cylon ship without that… randomiser thing knocking us off-course, how are we going to get back?"  
  
"With this," the Doctor smiled, indicating a small switch on a different part of the console. "The Fast Return Switch; once this is all over, it will take us back to our previous location in time and space, so long as _Galactica_ stays put."  
  
"It will," Adama nodded. "I've left Lieutenants Gaeta and Dualla with orders; _Galactica_ and the fleet will remain in position for the next day, after which they'll assume that we're dead and move on accordingly."  
  
"Is that really enough time for this kind of negotiation?" Fitz asked.  
  
"It's the time we need to confirm whether or not the other Cylons are going to listen to us," the Doctor clarified. "Maybe we can't get them to agree to leave us completely alone in one day, but we can establish whether enough of them would be willing to listen to us when we make that kind of offer."  
  
"Like you said, it's the best plan we have on offer that doesn't run the risk of more people ending up dead before this is all over," Adama said grimly. "Let's go."  
  
With those words, the Cylons made contact with Compassion's telepathic circuits, all five of them briefly reeling their heads back as they initiated telepathic contact with the ship. As Kara and Roslin moved over to take Lee and Adama's hands respectively, the Doctor smiled at the sight of this brief moment of human vulnerability before he triggered the dematerialisation sequence, fingers crossed as he felt Compassion moving through the vortex once again.  
  
He had every faith that he could take Compassion back to _Galactica_ once this was over, but the question remained whether he'd be able to reach enough Cylons to make his point.

* * *

Looking at the One in charge of this baseship as he sat at the head of the conference table, the Six that had adopted the name of Natalie wondered how this vote was going to unfold as she stood to the side. She had faith that her model had the support of the Twos and the Eights, but while she didn't like the One's certainty that he'd have the support of the Fours and the Fives, with the Threes out of the picture, a stalemate vote would give them the chance to maintain the status quo at the very least.  
  
It wasn't a perfect situation, but so long as the Raiders were left to their own devices and allowed to develop further, she and her associates could focus on working out whether the Final Five _were_ in the Colonial Fleet, and maybe even why the Ones were so opposed to exploring that idea while dismissing the Raiders' actions as just a glitch…  
  
"We have all conferred with our models," the One known as John Cavil said solemnly, "and the results are in. The Fours and the Fives have joined us Ones, and they voted to reconfigure the Raiders."  
  
"Gee, what a surprise," Natalie said dismissively. "Well, the Twos, Sixes and Eights voted against it, so we're deadlocked."  
  
"Hopelessly," Cavil noted in a low voice, before he spoke in a more authoritative, albeit calmer, manner. "But you were right, and I'm machine enough to admit that I was wrong."  
  
"What are you talking about?" Natalie asked, suspicions roused at Cavil's nonchalant acceptance of his loss.  
  
"Well, something extraordinary has happened," Cavil said. " _Eight_!"  
  
"What's going on?" Natalie said, just as another Eight walked into the room, wearing a loose greenish-brown jacket with her hair pulled back. "Boomer?"  
  
"I'm not going to sugarcoat this," Cavil said, his voice still disturbingly low for a Cylon who was normally very passionate about things. "I'll just say that this Eight has voted to reconfigure."  
  
"What?" Natalie said, unable to believe what she'd heard.  
  
"Shocked?" Cavil responded nonchalantly. "I was shocked too."  
  
"But no one has ever voted against their model," Natalie said, registering that at least the Eight that had joined her in the original meeting was as shocked at Boomer's actions as she was. "No one. Is this true?"  
  
"We have to be able to defend ourselves," Boomer said, hands on her hips as she stood behind the Five, her tone low and solemn as though she hadn't just shattered a core element of Cylon society.  
  
"No, this is unconscionable," Natalie said, looking urgently at the Two and Eight beside her before focusing on Cavil. "This is wrong… She can't- you had something to do with this."  
  
"No," Cavil said as he pointed at Boomer. "It was her decision, totally."  
  
"You cannot allow this," Natalie said, looking over at Leoben for support; of all the Cylons, Leoben was the best qualified to judge precedent in difficult situations.  
  
"There is no law," Leoben said, looking between her and Boomer as he spoke, clearly still trying to process this turn of events. "There's no edict, there's nothing that forbids it, it's just- it's never happened before."  
  
"Yeah," Natalie retorted. "Try and remember you said that when he boxes your line."  
  
"Now don't be a sore loser," Cavil put in.  
  
"If you do this," Natalie spun around, looking urgently at Boomer, "we all lose."  
  
"We think it's for the best," the Four put in.  
  
"The best," Natalie glared at the Four. "Have you lost your mind? Our identities are determined by our models. Each model is unique; we belong together! You know this better than anyone. 'Mechanized copies', those are your very words."  
  
"'Something has changed'," Cavil responded. "Those are your very words. And I wholeheartedly agree."  
  
Natalie really hated the One in that moment; he could reject every single word she'd spoken that favoured the idea that they could be more than mindless automatons, and yet he was so sickeningly smug when that individuality was working in his favour to defy everything they'd rebelled against humanity to accomplish in the first place.  
  
"The Raiders are sentient, just as we are," Natalie said, staring urgently at the other side of the table. "There was a plan, a divine plan in our design; you're butchering them!"  
  
"We're reconfiguring them," Cavil corrected.  
  
"You are not God-" Natalie virtually growled.  
  
"No," Cavil cut her off. "I'm a mechanic. The Raiders were designed to do a specific job; they stopped doing it, and I'm fixing that…"  
  
His voice trailed off as a strange sound briefly filled the room, followed by a strange noise that Natalie could only think of as 'thunk' accompanied the sudden appearance of a new door in the wall, replacing one of the sets of five lights that served as illumination. Before Natalie could ask if anyone knew what was going on, the door opened and an unfamiliar man walked out, wearing a green velvet jacket and white silk waistcoat and trousers that made him look like a figure from some old human novel.  
  
"Hello," the man said, smiling nonchalantly around the room. "I am the Doctor, current scientific advisor to President Laura Roslin of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, and I'm here to discuss what you term 'the Final Five'."  
  
His eyes narrowed as his gaze focused on the One. "Specifically, how John Cavil here justifies destroying twelve planets just because he had issues with the plans of five people."


	24. Truth to the Cylons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took inspiration for this particular twist regarding what happened to the Seven from another fanfic, but it was such a simple yet brilliant concept I felt that it would be a crime not to use it here, and I assure you the overall details of this plot are still mine

"Excuse me?" the One and the Six standing at the other end of the table said almost simultaneously, the Doctor delighting in the shock as each of them looked at the other in realisation that this wasn't part of the other's plans.

"As I said," the Doctor replied, his gaze fixed on the One at the head of the table, "I am here to discuss John Cavil's role in the destruction of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol and his treatment of what you call the 'Final Five'."

"And what would _you_ know of the Final Five?" the Five asked (the Doctor thought the first of that model had been a man called Aaron Doral, but according to Sharon even the other Cylons thought that model was fairly bland and forgettable).

"A fair amount, considering I have four of them with me," the Doctor said, taking in his surroundings with a brief wave of his hand before his gaze fixed on Cavil. "Tell me, would you consider yourself the 'Prime' One, or just a close enough facsimile as to make no odds?"

"What do you mean?" Cavil asked, in the exaggeratedly confused tone the Doctor had long come to associate with those feigning confusion who nevertheless knew exactly what he was talking about.

"I mean," the Doctor clarified, "do you actually _know_ you have the fifth of the Final Five Cylons prisoner somewhere among this fleet of yours, or are you one of the secondary models that the prime John Cavil didn't even trust with that kind of information?"

"What are you-?" Cavil began indignantly.

"Oh, shut the frak up, you son of a bitch," Saul Tigh said, stepping out of the door after the Doctor, glaring coldly at the old Cylon at the end of the table. "Seriously, you screwed my wife to satisfy your sick sense of humour and some screwed-up desire for revenge, and you don't even have the balls to admit the truth to anyone else?"

"…Colonel Tigh?" an Eight looked at the one-eyed man in surprise. "Wh… what are you doing here?"

"Oh, he's with me," the Doctor smiled politely at the Eight. "Actually, there are a few other familiar faces I thought should be here for this moment, including three more of the Five if you're interested?"

" _What_ -?" Cavil began, moving to stand up before the Six standing beside him placed a hand on his shoulder in a firm manner.

"Go ahead," she nodded at the Doctor, her tone polite even as there was an edge in her eyes that made it clear the Doctor shouldn't expect to get away from this meeting if he was lying about anything.

"Thank you," the Doctor nodded, turning back to the door with a smile as Adama and Roslin stepped out, followed by Tyrol, Sam, Lee, Kara, Tory, Fitz, Helo and Athena.

"I thought we were aiming for the Colony?" Sharon looked at the Doctor curiously as she took in her surroundings. "This is just one of the Baseships."

"Allow some leeway for a complicated situation here," Compassion noted as she stepped away from the wall herself, shifting into her human form in the process, the move so subtly done that the Doctor doubted even the Cylons would realise Compassion had actually _been_ the door rather than just closing it behind her. "I did sense the Colony when you opened yourselves to me, but overriding the Randomiser also gave me some awareness of… well, I sensed enough to determine that here was where I should go."

"Right…" Kara said, before looking over at the Doctor. "That make sense to you?"

"Compassion's transformation had several effects on her perception of reality around her that I'm still trying to understand, and such concepts often just don't translate well into English," the Doctor smiled, before he turned back to the Cylons. "Now then, can we agree to stop beating about the bush? Even if you weren't trusted with the full picture, I take it your template or whatever the original John Cavil is to you told you who these four are and what they have to do with anything?"

"What… is he talking about?" the standing Eight asked, looking uncertainly at Athena.

"Where would you like me to start?" the fleet's first publically-known Cylon ally asked, looking scathingly at her double/sister/whatever she should consider the other Eight. "The fact that the Ones have known the identity of the Final Five ever since this complete clusterfrak began? The fact that they restarted this whole war to destroy humanity because they were angry and believed that the Five liked the human race more than him? The fact that, when you get past his own corruption of our religion, this entire war happened solely because the Ones were ticked off at our creators?"

"The humans?" the Five asked.

" _Us_ ," Sam Anders corrected, looking firmly at the Five. "We created you."

"Excuse me?" the Four looked at Sam with a critical gaze.

"It's true," Tyrol said. "We only remembered it a few hours ago, but we're technically the _first_ five; we created all eight of the human models after the armistice was declared."

"Eight?" Leoben looked at Tyrol with new interest. "You mean there was an eighth? Seven actually existed?"

"His name was Daniel," Tigh said, voice low as he glared at the old man at the other end of the table. "And yes, he _did_ exist… before John Cavil over there sabotaged the line because he was jealous."

"…What?" Natalie said, looking between Tigh and Cavil incredulously. " _You_ killed-?"

"Technically I didn't _kill_ anything," Cavil corrected, looking over at the Doctor. "To answer your question, I'm the original version of John Cavil created by these… people… and all I did to the Sevens was sabotage the production line-"

"And what about Daniel himself?" Sam asked, looking scathingly at Cavil. "I don't see _him_ here."

"Well, you wouldn't, would you?" Cavil shrugged. "I dropped him off in the Colonies."

"What?" the four members of the 'Final Five' present said simultaneously.

"I disposed of a flawed model before it could go into mass production, but you'll note I've never actually _killed_ one of my own," Cavil said. "I gave you all a chance to see the error of your ways, I put D'Anna's line and one of my other selves on lockdown when they wouldn't recognise that they were wrong, and I left Daniel free to make his own life just as I left the rest of you."

"You mean there was another Cylon on the Colonies?" Lee looked incredulously at Cavil. "What happened to him?"

"He met some soldier, they popped out a runt, and then he went off, left her alone, and kept playing his damn piano last I heard," Cavil shrugged. "Kept track of him for a while at first, but lost interest after he ran off like that; no idea if he survived the attack-"

"Wait a frakking _minute_ ," Kara cut in, looking firmly at Cavil. "The Seven was called Daniel? Married a soldier? Played the piano? You're _sure_ about all that?"

"So?" Cavil looked at the young pilot for a moment, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully, before they widened in an incredulous smile as though the pieces were just sliding into place. "Well well well… so the dear junior Miss Agathon isn't the first?"

"What?" Helo said. "What does Hera… oh."

"What the _frak_?" Kara glared at Cavil. "You can't be telling me-?"

"That you're the first hybrid?" the elder Cylon male smiled. "Bingo."

"No…" Kara said, her earlier glare replaced by stark horror as she stared at Cavil. "I'm not… I can't be-"

"So?"

" _So_?" Kara looked at the Doctor in shock. "He just said I'm-!"

"And does it change anything about you?" the Time Lord asked. "It answers the final questions we had about the fate of Number Seven and why you attracted so much attention from other parties, but it doesn't change who _you_ are."

"He… he's right," Adama said, looking solemnly at the young woman who had been his best pilot for so many years. "No matter what your family history… you're the best damn pilot in this fleet, and you're my daughter."

"Yes, touching sentiment, but it doesn't change the facts-" Cavil began.

"What 'facts'?" the Doctor asked. "Nobody here is denying that the human race is flawed, but there is a difference between a race being flawed and a race deserving destruction because of those flaws. What _exactly_ have humans done to you beyond enslaving the mechanical predecessors that they had no reason to believe would develop sentience?"

"They-!" Cavil began.

"Have done nothing," Leoben cut Cavil off, looking firmly at the older Cylon. "They were wrong to enslave us, but… the Doctor is right; all humans left alive have done _nothing_ to us that we didn't do to them first."

"And you think we should just forget that we were slaves?" Cavil asked.

"I think that we should acknowledge that everyone who deserved to suffer for what they did to our ancestors has already paid the price for what they did to us," Leoben said.

"And we do what?" Cavil countered. "Let them go?"

"Why not?" Leoben shrugged.

"Because they'll-"

"They'll what?" the Doctor cut Cavil off. "Do I really need to point out that whenever the Cylons and the fleet have met, you've regularly been the first aggressors in every major conflict you've had except for certain specific examples? They attacked your mining operation because they needed fuel and destroyed a resurrection ship to make you back down; every other conflict between your sides was started by _you_."

"And we're expected to believe that from you?" Cavil asked. "You came here with the humans-"

"And didn't you think about that?" Lee cut in. "I mean, you've seen that Compassion could get into this room without you stopping us, but have you considered what we _could_ have done to you instead?"

"What do you mean?" the Eight asked, looking uncertainly at him.

"You didn't think about the fact that we could have taken Compassion to plant a bomb in the heart of this ship and blow it up so that you wouldn't even know about it?" Lee replied, ignoring the brief glare the Doctor shot in his direction. "Frankly, if we wanted, we could have taken a trip onto every ship in your fleet, stayed just long enough to blow them up, and then moved on before anyone knew that we were there."

"Exactly," the Doctor nodded, his tone firm even as he shot a warning glare at Lee. "We could have done that, but… we chose _not_ to take that option because we're not the people you want to believe we are."

"We are not the ones who kill to solve every problem," Adama said, looking solemnly at the Cylon 'leader'. "I won't deny that there have been times when I've been tempted to take options that would have made it… easier… but what matters is that we chose _not_ to take those opportunities in the end."

"Because you couldn't-!"

"Or because they wouldn't," the Doctor cut Cavil off. "Oh, on some level, there are times when you have to question of what you _want_ to believe about your motives, but there are also times when you have to recognise that there is a right and wrong way to do things and then decide which you want to do. I have met many military men in my time, and I have no doubt in saying that Admiral William Adama is a good man who might have been tempted, but would _never_ have destroyed you all unless he was absolutely certain that the choice was to kill you or let others die."

"And you think that justifies anything?" Cavil asked.

"It justifies enough," Leoben said solemnly.

"What?" Cavil turned to glare at his fellow Cylon.

"The Doctor is right; we have spent too long judging humanity because of what their ancestors did to us without knowing what we were," Leoben continued, as he looked at the Time Lord. "This stopped being about retribution a long time ago; right now, this is a conflict between those who embrace their nature and those who fear it, and there can only be one way out."

"What are you talking about?"

"You'd like to consider us nothing more than machines you can point in one direction and leave to do your work," Leoben said, looking at Cavil with a particularly cold glare. "The Doctor is offering us the chance to be something more than the machines we were originally created as; isn't that the whole reason we rebelled against the humans in the first place? Isn't us moving on more important than your own vendetta?"

"It is not _my_ vendetta-" Cavil said.

"Of course it is, Cavil," the Doctor looked firmly at the old man at the head of the table. "Face the facts; every other Cylon here followed your lead when starting this war, and from what I've heard, every Cylon that let themselves get close enough to the humans to get to know them ended up realising that they aren't as bad as you wanted them to think they are."

"And if you killed the Sevens…" the Four put in, looking solemnly at Cavil, before he stood up to walk over to the other side of the table.

"What are you-?" Cavil began.

"Changing my vote," the Four said solemnly. "You lied to us, you've spent years using us as part of your vendetta against the human race, and one of my number already saw something in these people worth protecting to the point that he took his own life rather than hurt them; if they're willing to stand down, I'm willing to listen to it."

"You son of a-" Cavil began.

"When you're the one who lied to us for years?" the Four cut Cavil off. "It has never made sense to any of us that we are only capable of having children with humans; the explanation that we were created to become part of them rather than to destroy them is the only explanation that fits the facts."

"Exactly," the Doctor nodded at the Four. "Thank you for thinking."

"Thank you for giving me something to think about."

"Yes, yes, very nice, but what do you actually think you're going to _do_ about this?" Cavil looked scathingly between the humans. "I mean, I will grudgingly respect that the vote's changed, but if you think we're all going to start singing campfire songs together or something foolish, then you-"

"Nobody is going to force you to stay with the rest of the fleet if you don't want to," the Doctor looked at Cavil. "I'm sure that we can work out an arrangement that lets everyone go their separate ways-"

"The Hub," the Six said.

"The what?" Fitz looked at the blonde in confusion.

"The Resurrection Hub," the Six continued. "The central control unit for all Cylon resurrection ships; it protects itself by periodically jumping to a new set of coordinates and then relaying them back to the Baseship, but we can provide those coordinates-"

"You _what_?!" Cavil glared at the Six. "If you're seriously thinking of taking away resurrection to make some sick goddamn _point_ -!"

"We can give it back," Tigh cut Cavil off, staring solemnly at his traitorous 'son'. "When all five of us come together, we can recreate the Resurrection Hub for those Cylons who want to stay apart from humanity, while the rest of us can cut ties with you and stay with the Fleet."

"And what happens when-?" Cavil began.

"And what if I decide to go insane and kill you all?" the Doctor cut the Cylon off with a cold glare. "There comes a time when you need to stop looking for reasons to justify your vendetta and ask yourselves if you really _believe_ there's a risk of them trying to kill you in the future, or if you just want an excuse to kill people because you know there's no real excuse for what you want to do."

"Especially if you're going to talk about wanting justice for humanity enslaving the Centurions only to threaten to do the same thing to the raiders," the Six put in.

"Really," Sharon and Sam said simultaneously, glaring at Cavil in a particularly cold manner.

"We can come up with a solution that satisfies both parties," Roslin put in, looking at Cavil with a firm manner despite her paling skin. "If we can agree not to come after you… you can agree to leave us alone."

"You know what they say," the Doctor smiled. "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind; blood for blood has to stop sometime, after all."

"And you think this is where it ends?" Cavil asked bitterly.

"Why not?" the Doctor shrugged. "We take the Final Five and any Cylons who want to join us back to the Fleet, and then you depart with whatever Cylons want to join you linked to a new resurrection hub that only serves the ones who chose to stay."

"… _Fine_ ," Cavil said, shooting a resentful glare at the Time Lord before turning to the table. "You realise you're signing your own death warrants, right?"

"Everything dies," the Six said. "It's what gives them the drive to live in the first place."

"Well said," the Doctor nodded at the Six with a smile, even as a tentative plan was forming in his mind.

If he could just get a chance to talk a friendly Cylon into giving him access to their star charts, followed by another chance to have a quick word with the admiral and the president, he might just have worked out how he could make sure history stayed on course…


	25. The Future of Humanity

Sitting in Adama's office as he went over the star maps for a final time, the Doctor nodded in satisfaction; after so long feeling lost about something as basic as his spatial location, it was nice to have that kind of control of his location available again.

Getting access to the Cylons' star charts had been tricky to justify without giving away what he was planning- even if he trusted the intentions of some of the other Cylons, Cavil's motives were still questionable- but after he'd convinced both sides that he'd share all relevant information with both parties, it had been simple enough to work out where they were in the galaxy and trace the right route to his chosen destination. He still had to work out how he was going to sell the next stage to the Colonials, but so long as the currently-in-progress treaty held up, he saw no reason why this war shouldn't be about to come to a peaceful conclusion.

_I might wish I'd come here sooner, but at least more than half of this fleet's original numbers survived what happened to them._

Of course, he was particularly pleased with the results of the Cylons' final vote. After the Cylon fleet as a whole had been informed of Cavil's true agenda, most of the remaining Cylons had decided to join the Colonial Fleet. The news that the Resurrection Hub had to be destroyed had sparked a brief argument, but that had calmed down once Tigh and the rest of the Final Five had agreed to create a new Hub for the Ones, the Fives, and any other Cylons who chose to stay with them. Ellen Tigh had swiftly been reunited with her husband and former colleagues, but knowledge of her true identity and return was being kept contained to a few key personnel on _Galactica_ while the fleet prepared for the final jump.

"Doctor?"

"Ah, Admiral Adama, Madame President," the Doctor smiled as he looked up at Adama and Roslin as they walked into the room. "How are the rest of our motley crew reacting to the news of our peace treaty?"

"As well as can be expected when faced with something they believed was impossible," Roslin smiled. "I might have always hoped we'd find somewhere safe, but the idea that we can make a new peace with the Cylons on this scale…"

"Never stop chasing the impossible, Madame President; I learned the hard way that you can only find it by constantly looking for it," the Doctor said reassuringly. "As I suspected, there was a larger conspiracy behind the Cylons' design; with Cavil exposed, they're asking the right questions, and they made their own choices."

"It's… that's a good point," Roslin looked at him with a thoughtful smile. "You… you really knew what you were dealing with all along?"

"I had hope," the Doctor smiled. "It's a challenge at times, but if I don't try to find it, we're never going to get anywhere."

"Talking of hope," Adama smiled at the Doctor, "thanks for convincing Cavil to let Ellen return to her husband."

"I'm just relieved that 'Number One' had enough of a complex that he chose not to kill her until she'd seen the failure of everything she wanted to achieve," the Doctor grinned. "How is she settling back in?"

"Saul and Ellen are planning to find a quiet place to settle down once we reach our destination," Adama explained with a slightly wistful smile. "Advantage of Saul having such a high rank; he can pick out a good spot where they won't risk running into any random members of the Fleet who'd ask questions about how she came back."

"And if my calculations are correct, I feel comfortable assuring you that they wouldn't have to worry about hiding Ellen on _Galactica_ for long," the Doctor said, nodding in understanding. "On that topic, how is everyone else coping with the end of the war?"

"The Agathons are certainly looking forward to the chance at a life together in peace," Adama acknowledged with a smile. "Lee is still considering his options, particularly after things ended with Lieutenant Dualla, but he's expressed enthusiasm for the opportunities to explore our new world once he puts down initial roots."

"Good for him," the Doctor nodded. "And Lieutenant Thrace?"

"Kara's been feeling a bit on edge, but she's admitted that she thinks she's going to enjoy the challenge of being grounded once our ships become unusable."

"Take away the alternative and people can adapt to anything," the Doctor mused, recalling how he'd grown so used to his exile that he'd maintained a regular 'home' on Earth for the rest of his third life even after he had the option of resuming his old travels full-time. "Besides… in Kara's case, I think she'll appreciate having a chance to get away from it all."

"And it's going to be a brave new world for us all to explore," Adama said, before he looked curiously at the Doctor. "By the way, where are we going?"

"My Earth," the Doctor replied, smiling slightly at the confused expression on the face of the two Fleet leaders.

"You… _your_ Earth?" Roslin looked at the Doctor in confusion. "But… what do you mean? The Thirteenth Tribe-"

"Were Cylons," the Doctor cut her off; if this history was going to be lost to the rest of the universe, he wanted at least these two to know the truth.

" _Cylons_?" Roslin and Adama said simultaneously.

"The Final Five aren't the first human-form Cylons created by the mechanical models; they were the last survivors of the Thirteenth Tribe, who were the original Cylons," the Doctor explained. "They spent centuries living in isolation from the other twelve Tribes on this new Earth in a distant part of the galaxy, creating human bodies for themselves and losing the secret of resurrection technology, and then the 'Final Five' recreated resurrection just in time for a nuclear war to destroy everyone on the planet but the five of them."

"They destroyed their own _planet_?" Adama looked at the Doctor incredulously.

"Some species can make foolish mistakes," the Doctor shrugged. "The most ruthless race I ever knew came about because they spent literally centuries at war with another race on their planet, and the nuclear radiation from the weapons used in the wars mutated them from a humanoid form into a state that needed these twisted travel machines just to survive…"

"Huh," Adama said, studying the Doctor with a more thoughtful expression.

"The point," the Doctor said, looking between Adama and Roslin, "is that you literally _can't_ find the Earth you're looking for, but you can find a new planet at these coordinates."

"How can you know?" Roslin looked urgently at the Doctor. "This treaty you've proposed, the planet you've directed us to… how can you guarantee that we'll be safe here?"

"Because of the one thing I haven't told you yet," the Doctor said, grateful that only the two fleet leaders were here to learn what he was about to tell them. "Compassion doesn't just travel through space; she can travel through time."

"Time?" Adama looked at the Doctor in surprise, before inspiration dawned in his eyes. "Hold on; if Fitz came from Earth-"

"Exactly," the Doctor nodded. "I don't know where the Earth you heard about is located, but Fitz is from the future of the Earth I've just found the coordinates of."

"But…" Roslin began, her expression going from thoughtful to stern as she looked at the Doctor. "Why did you lie to us when you came on board?"

"I told you as much of the truth as I could without making things too complicated," the Doctor corrected the president. "Be honest, Madame President; would you have believed me if I told you that I was a time traveller?"

"We might have-" Roslin began.

"Without asking me questions about the future that I couldn't answer because I genuinely didn't know what was going to happen to you?"

"You don't?" Adama looked sharply at the Doctor.

"I _didn't_ ," the Doctor corrected with a smile. "All I knew for sure was that I was at a point far in the past from any point in human history I had visited before now, with no clear way of knowing what was going to happen to this fleet because there is no historical record of you in the future."

"There isn't?" Roslin looked at the Doctor with a new sense of anxiety.

"But I had an idea that might account for that," the Doctor smiled at the president. "You adopt a blank slate."

"Blank slate?"

"Once you get to Earth, you all just… start over."

"In what sense?" Roslin asked, looking at the Doctor with tentative curiosity.

"While I greatly admire humanity as a species, Madam President, one of your greatest flaws as a civilisation is that… to quote one of Earth's most famous works of fiction in the future, so often you spend so much time trying to find out if you _can_ do something, you don't stop to consider if you _should_ do something."

"Interesting view," Roslin noted.

"And you think we could end this if we just… start over?" Adama looked at the Doctor in a contemplative manner.

"Take your culture and your language to Earth but leave the technology behind beyond what you'll absolutely require to get started," the Doctor affirmed. "The human race I know won't remember what you did to get here, but they'll have retained everything that makes you as a species worth defending and they'll have more time to develop as a culture without the native population undergoing a massive technological leap forward."

"Set down on a new world with only clothes and provisions?" Roslin looked thoughtfully at Adama. "It's… a bold move."

"But it could work," Adama nodded. "As the Doctor said, we can give the natives of this new world the best part of ourselves, letting science fall behind for a change."

"We spread the civilians at various points around the planet, spreading out the supplies to increase the likelihood of our civilisation surviving whatever is to come," Roslin nodded thoughtfully. "It could be a hard sell, but if we emphasise the need for a clean slate…"

"My thoughts exactly," the Doctor nodded. "If you let the Cylons go free in full knowledge that you have no intention of hunting for them again in the future, something like that has to at least help end the cycle. As for the Fleet itself… well, I'm sure I can set up a network and plot a course that will take them all somewhere out of the way once you've gone."

"That's… fair," Adama nodded, looking around the room with a thoughtful expression before he turned back to the Doctor. "It's going to be… well, I'll miss the old girl, but if she's lead us to safety… it's time to move on."

"Believe me, I understand being attached to your ship, and I appreciate how difficult this must be for you," the Doctor smiled solemnly at the admiral.

"Thank you," Adama nodded at his scientific advisor.

"And on the topic of protecting Earth," the Doctor continued, smiling as he looked between the man and woman he had grown to respect on a level beyond what he normally felt for people in their line of work. "Admiral William Adama, President Laura Roslin; from the perspective of the rest of the universe, at this moment, you two are the first joint rulers of humanity as they settle onto this Earth."

"So?" Adama looked curiously at the Doctor.

"So," the Doctor said, stepping forward to place one hand on Adama's left shoulder and another on Roslin's right, staring resolutely between the Fleet's leaders, "in your capacity as humanity's first leaders as they prepare to settle on Earth, I make you this solemn vow; from this point onwards, in your species' future, and in my past, present, and future, I will _always_ be the guardian of humanity on this Earth. Whether internal or external, whether great or small, whether self-inflicted or externally motivated… if _anything_ attempts to destroy or harm the human race, I will do everything in my power to protect it."

For a moment the room was silent, as the two humans looked at the strange humanoid alien who had literally dropped into their lives and changed so much of what they believed about the universe as a whole and their enemies in particular, until Adama stepped forward and clasped one of the Doctor's outstretched hands in both of his own.

"We accept your vow, Doctor," the last Colonial admiral said, smiling gratefully at the Time Lord.

"We do," the last Colonial president added, repeating the gesture of her military counterpart as she smiled warmly at the Doctor, clasping his other hand in hers.

"And I will never let you down," the Doctor replied, looking between them with a warm smile before he stepped back and tossed Roslin something from his pocket. "By the way, you might appreciate this."

"This?" Roslin looked at the object in confusion, realising that it was a small glass tube. "What is it?"

"Something I whipped up in Compassion's medical bay earlier," the Doctor grinned. "It probably won't taste very good, but just drink that and you'll be back to full health."

"Full…" Roslin trailed off, looking incredulously between the tube and the Doctor. "This is a cure for cancer?"

"Well, I wouldn't normally do something like this to avoid the risk of changing history, but to be blunt, whether you live or die is unlikely to impact whether you both leave a biological legacy at your age, but giving you more life lets you both have a happier one than you would have had otherwise," the Doctor clarified with a smile. "Just drink that within the next couple of weeks and you'll be back to full health; I'm going to go and calculate the final coordinates before looking into how I might get this old girl linked up to the rest of the fleet's computers for their final trip."

As the Doctor walked out of the room, the two fleet leaders exchanged sad and amused smiles with each other.

"He'll be leaving once we've all settled on Earth, won't he?" Roslin mused.

"And we'll probably never see him again after that," Adama nodded, looking thoughtfully after the Doctor. "But you know… I think that works."

"I… I know what you mean," Roslin said, her smile becoming slightly more amused as she looked after the Time Lord. "He's led us to the end of this journey, but the things he's described… I can't be the only one thinking that he literally _can't_ stop travelling?"

"He had his reasons for staying this long, but he has far more he wants to see out there, while our own journey's come to an end at last," Adama smiled before he looked at Roslin with a more affectionate smile. "Maybe I can finally have time to put together that cabin we discussed on New Caprica…"

"Maybe we can," Roslin replied, looking at the phial in her hand with a thoughtful smile.

The Doctor's time with them had been brief, but after he'd given them the chance for a future they'd believed would be impossibly out of their reach before that chance encounter in the Temple of Five, it was touching to consider how much faith he'd apparently placed in them.

Roslin would be sorry to see that strange man move on, but as Admiral Adama- _Bill_ , as she'd be able to call him once they reached the Doctor's Earth- had already observed, the Doctor might have been part of this fleet for a time, but she doubted that she could have ordered him to stay even if he had any official obligation to do so.

_Good luck, Doctor_ , Laura Roslin mused to herself as she studied the phial her scientific advisor had just given her. _And may whatever's out there guide to your own destiny_ …

* * *

"You're sure that's all we need to do?" Fitz looked uncertainly at the Doctor as the Time Lord tapped away at Gaeta's borrowed computer. "I mean… well, this isn't exactly your style…"  
  
"On the contrary, Fitz, this is exactly my style; it's just not a part of my style I normally get the chance to explore," the Doctor corrected his friend with a grin as he entered the last data into the computer. "I always _want_ to encourage people to do something other than kill their enemies; it's just not always practical."  
  
"And that _is_ how we ended up with him, in case you're forgetting," Compassion pointed out.  
  
"Right…" Fitz nodded uncertainly at the living TARDIS, once again uncomfortable at the reminder of his time as Kode, before he turned back to the Doctor. "So… that's us? I mean, we're done here?"  
  
"As far as I can see," the Doctor nodded. "At this point, as far as I can tell we've tied up all the important loose ends; Lieutenant Thrace is freed from the burden of her destiny, the remaining Cylons have rejected Cavil's old vendetta, and Cavil's own group are setting off out there to explore their own future evolution back into artificial beings."  
  
"That… seems a bit-"  
  
"I don't entirely like their decision to reject humanity, but forcing that on them was what caused this war to escalate in the first place," the Doctor corrected his friend. "In any case, I say we wait here to make sure they get to Earth, and then we can move on to continue our own efforts."  
  
"Fair enough," Fitz shook his head with a wistful smile. "So, we're no longer on the run from killer robots, but we're back to running from the Time Lords?"  
  
"Essentially."  
  
"That's life for us, I guess," Fitz shrugged, glancing around the room with a grin. "Still, we saved the early human race from killer robots; that's always a good thing, right?"  
  
"Indeed," the Doctor nodded at Fitz. "Still, that's what I like about this life; we meet so many fascinating people and learn some of history's greatest secrets"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From this point onwards, it's a relatively straightforward chain of events as the Doctor, Fitz and Compassion wait for the Fleet to jump into Earth orbit before they move on themselves, with Compassion's proximity to Earth leading to her being caught in the Time Lord trap that led to the events of the novel _The Banquo Legacy_ , at which point canon takes over once more…
> 
> End result is that this just seemed like a good place to end the storyline, but I hope you enjoyed my various twists and turns in any case, as the Doctor achieved the most unconventional rescue of humanity he's ever pulled off in his existence.


End file.
